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MQA is Vaporware


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1 hour ago, lucretius said:

Shouldn't that be "selling refrigerators to Eskimos"?

 It is likely to be warmer in a refrigerator than outside for an Eskimo !😉 

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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10 hours ago, FredericV said:

On the group managed by Veter Peth, someone is comparing those MQA CD files with the ones before, and he does not hear any difference. As he is using an MQA dac, this would mean you actually need to use an MQA decoder in some form to get what you had in the past, without MQA.

So the MQA tax is now active on Tidal:

afbeelding.png.1e66954ab7047928a60c3118fd3af171.png

MQA adds nothing with those green fake 16/44.1 MQA CD files for the consumer, it takes away your rights and then sells them back to you as you now need MQA to get what you already had before.

Maybe they come up with the lame excuse his system is not good enough ....

So if you play a Tidal Master at the Hifi setting, you're streaming MQA CD, do you need an MQA DAC or will the player software decode it fully? What happens if you don't have any decoder? 

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3 hours ago, Rexp said:

So if you play a Tidal Master at the Hifi setting, you're streaming MQA CD, do you need an MQA DAC or will the player software decode it fully? What happens if you don't have any decoder? 

 

At the HiFi setting, it's unclear whether one is streaming pure PCM, MQA-CD, or MQA (but if IIRC, the stream was only 16 bit).  Also, if it were MQA, then the bits have been manipulated on Tidal's side so that the decoder/DAC does not recognize it as an MQA stream.  Thus, a hardware or software decoder is unnecessary and pointless.

mQa is dead!

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8 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

At the HiFi setting, it's unclear whether one is streaming pure PCM, MQA-CD, or MQA (but if IIRC, the stream was only 16 bit).  Also, if it were MQA, then the bits have been manipulated on Tidal's side so that the decoder/DAC does not recognize it as an MQA stream.  Thus, a hardware or software decoder is unnecessary and pointless.

 

What?  Am I missing something here?  Are you saying that Tidal is removing the MQA tag on their streams? Are they giving you MQA and hiding the fact?

Boycott Warner

Boycott Tidal

Boycott Roon

Boycott Lenbrook

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13 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

What?  Am I missing something here?  Are you saying that Tidal is removing the MQA tag on their streams? Are they giving you MQA and hiding the fact?

 

It's been a long time since I had a Tidal subscription.  But I do remember that when the desktop player was set to the HiFi level, the DAC's blue light was not triggered and, as well, the DAC indicated the stream was 16 bit.  And this was true even if I had pointed to an MQA track previously played and listed in my database.  What I don't know is what the source of the stream was: Whether it was pure PCM or not.

mQa is dead!

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6 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

It's been a long time since I had a Tidal subscription.  But I do remember that when the desktop player was set to the HiFi level, the DAC's blue light was not triggered and, as well, the DAC indicated the stream was 16 bit.  And this was true even if I had pointed to an MQA track previously played and listed in my database.  What I don't know is what the source of the stream was: Whether it was pure PCM or not.

 

People on Tidal are reporting now that their choices on the 16/44.1 level are being replaced with MQA.

Boycott Warner

Boycott Tidal

Boycott Roon

Boycott Lenbrook

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13 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

People on Tidal are reporting now that their choices on the 16/44.1 level are being replaced with MQA.

 

When I had Tidal, normally for each track, there was a Redbook version and possibly an MQA version (the list of MQA titles wasn't too big then).  Since then, MQA has become much more ubiquitous on Tidal.  Since I no longer have Tidal, I cannot verify if 16/44.1 is being replaced with MQA.

mQa is dead!

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8 hours ago, lucretius said:

At the HiFi setting, it's unclear whether one is streaming pure PCM, MQA-CD, or MQA (but if IIRC, the stream was only 16 bit).  

 

On the TIDAL HiFi quality setting, the streaming application's MQA flag not marking the listed album can actually be trusted. So the application does make it clear whether one is streaming CD-res pure PCM as it won't have MQA flag.

 

On the TIDAL HiFi quality setting, it is actually unclear as to whether the application's MQA flag indicates MQA-CD or TIDAL manipulated (reduced to 16-bit from 24-bit hi-res) MQA. In this case, only the player/streamer (if it supports MQA) and/or its MQA DAC flagging MQA during playback indicates that it's MQA-CD; TIDAL mangled (hi-res) MQA otherwise.

Ironically, @FredericV Logitech Media Server's use of 'Hi Res' to flag an MQA album (MQA-CD or hi-res MQA) is actually more disingenuous than other software (including TIDAL's own) vague use of 'Masters', 'MQA', 'M', etc - especially as LMS only uses the HiFi setting.

 

 

 

8 hours ago, lucretius said:

if it were MQA, then the bits have been manipulated on Tidal's side so that the decoder/DAC does not recognize it as an MQA stream.  Thus, a hardware or software decoder is unnecessary and pointless.

 

Agreed.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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12 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

I was just re-reading the 11/12/2020 articles on Forbes.  Seems like a MQA press release. You would think that Forbes would be a little more in depth and their "reporters" would be capable of critical analysis.  Seemed like a puff piece.

The Senior Contributor author of that, and several other previous pieces on Forbes regarding MQA going back to June 2018, seems to make him look a bit like a fan boy as I read it.

 

Certainly no attempt at telling the full story there, perhaps he's just not aware of the full story.

 

He's followed up that Nov. 12 piece with a Nov. 19 mini review of the MQA dongle by Helm Audio.

no-mqa-sm.jpg

Boycott HDtracks

Boycott Lenbrook

Boycott Warner Music Group

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15 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

image.png.a0cc98ca737857e8bfa08455830e73e8.png

Looks like The MQA Team did not take into account the MQA albums on Tidal that were in both 24/96 and 24/192 resolutions -- obviously, there was not 2 masters.  In fact, I doubt MQA ltd ever seen the masters but were given the same hires albums as HDtracts.

mQa is dead!

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6 minutes ago, lucretius said:

In fact, I doubt MQA ltd ever seen the masters but were given the same hires albums as HDtracts.

 

No, that is not so. Half of HD-tracks is fake/upsampled HiRes, while MQA 24/96 (24/88) after unfold is HiRes (not so) all right.

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Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer)

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