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MQA is Vaporware


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Does anyone know if any new Sony Music / MQA content has actually appeared on Tidal?

Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade.  Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones.

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Yet more MQA weirdness.  I subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz, Tidal is easier to create playlists I then transfer to Qobuz and they have some tracks I can't get on Qobuz. To consolidate the two streaming services and my local library I use Audirvana, which is where I noticed this behavior. Apparently Tidal is sending a track to my instance of Audirvana in 24/192 FLAC at which point Audirvana does whatever "unfolding" sorcery MQA dictates and outputs it to my dac at 24/96.  This makes no sense at all, it certainly isn't saving any bandwidth (one of MQA's supposed benefits), I can play the same track on Qobuz at full 24/192, not use any more bandwidth and listen at a higher resolution. Here's a screenshot of what I'm writing about, for those not familiar with Audirvana the input format is on the bottom left and output is on the bottom right, I did the screenshot with the settings page displayed to demonstrate that I'm not setting anything to cause this behavior-it's all the fault of MQA and Tidal.  Thankfully I never succumbed to the MQA madness and spent $$$ on decoding hardware!

 

 

MQAWeirdness.png

 

Edit: Brain fog typo 192 khz, not 196

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T

5 hours ago, OldHardwareTech said:

Yet more MQA weirdness.  I subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz, Tidal is easier to create playlists I then transfer to Qobuz and they have some tracks I can't get on Qobuz. To consolidate the two streaming services and my local library I use Audirvana, which is where I noticed this behavior. Apparently Tidal is sending a track to my instance of Audirvana in 24/192 FLAC at which point Audirvana does whatever "unfolding" sorcery MQA dictates and outputs it to my dac at 24/96.  This makes no sense at all, it certainly isn't saving any bandwidth (one of MQA's supposed benefits), I can play the same track on Qobuz at full 24/192, not use any more bandwidth and listen at a higher resolution. Here's a screenshot of what I'm writing about, for those not familiar with Audirvana the input format is on the bottom left and output is on the bottom right, I did the screenshot with the settings page displayed to demonstrate that I'm not setting anything to cause this behavior-it's all the fault of MQA and Tidal.  Thankfully I never succumbed to the MQA madness and spent $$$ on decoding hardware!

 

 

MQAWeirdness.png

 

Edit: Brain fog typo 192 khz, not 196

 

Tidal would send the MQA192 file to you at 24/48.  The MQA core decoder built into Audirvana Studio can only do the first "unfold" of the MQA file and that is to 24/96.

mQa is dead!

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2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

T

 

Tidal would send the MQA192 file to you at 24/48.  The MQA core decoder built into Audirvana Studio can only do the first "unfold" of the MQA file and that is to 24/96.

According to Audirvana it's receiving the file at 24/192, I noticed it because it usually shows receiving at 24/48 or 16/44. Regardless of the input format it decodes almost everything to 24/96 but it decodes some things at 24/88, The Styx album The Mission is an example of 24/88.

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7 minutes ago, OldHardwareTech said:

According to Audirvana it's receiving the file at 24/192, I noticed it because it usually shows receiving at 24/48 or 16/44. Regardless of the input format it decodes almost everything to 24/96 but it decodes some things at 24/88, The Styx album The Mission is an example of 24/88.

If it is an MQA file, then Audirvana's report is incorrect. Let Damien know over at the Audirvana Community.

mQa is dead!

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2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

That is an example of MQA-CD, i.e. 16 bit MQA. And although it looks like Audirvana is decoding this to 16/88.2, the original file contains no ultrasonic frequencies.  This is an excellent example of fake hi-res.

Ok, that makes sense...if anything about MQA actually does. I agree with TCA, certainly nothing more obfuscated comes to mind. 

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26 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

That is an example of MQA-CD, i.e. 16 bit MQA. And although it looks like Audirvana is decoding this to 16/88.2, the original file contains no ultrasonic frequencies.  This is an excellent example of fake hi-res.

Here's confirmation of exactly what you said.  Absolutely nothing over 22.1 khz. I particularly like that it says "Bitdepth not HD". lol.

 

 

AS Gram Parson analysis.png

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15 hours ago, OldHardwareTech said:

According to Audirvana it's receiving the file at 24/192, I noticed it because it usually shows receiving at 24/48 or 16/44. Regardless of the input format it decodes almost everything to 24/96 but it decodes some things at 24/88, The Styx album The Mission is an example of 24/88.

The Styx album The Mission is (currently) not an mqa album on Tidal..

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22 hours ago, OldHardwareTech said:

According to Audirvana it's receiving the file at 24/192, I noticed it because it usually shows receiving at 24/48 or 16/44. Regardless of the input format it decodes almost everything to 24/96 but it decodes some things at 24/88, The Styx album The Mission is an example of 24/88.

 

The original file, on Qobuz, will be 24/192. What happens on TIDAL is that the file is down-sampled (in effect) to 24/94, then "folded" using the MQA scheme, after some form of usually automated DSP processing (which, to me, sounds like the effects of a 3D plug-in, depending on the music type). However, the file is reported as being 24/192 by TIDAL, even though it is no longer. Depending on the DAC you use, it or Audirvana does the "first unfold" back to 24/96, then, if your DAC can "render" MQA, it up-samples it back to 24/192 using a form of minimum phase filter. 

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On 7/29/2021 at 11:09 PM, OldHardwareTech said:

Here's confirmation of exactly what you said.  Absolutely nothing over 22.1 khz. I particularly like that it says "Bitdepth not HD". lol.

 

 

AS Gram Parson analysis.png

 

 

I just checked a local MQA file with Audirvana 3.5 (which is supposed to have the MQA core decoder built in.  Audirvana did not recognize the file as MQA -- treated it as an ordinary 24/48 file.  I wonder if it is the same for Studio, when it comes to local MQA files (as opposed to streaming)?  

mQa is dead!

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5 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

 

I just checked a local MQA file with Audirvana 3.5 (which is supposed to have the MQA core decoder built in.  Audirvana did not recognize the file as MQA -- treated it as an ordinary 24/48 file.  I wonder if it is the same for Studio, when it comes to local MQA files (as opposed to streaming)?  

That's bizarre, I would have thought it would detect it.  From what I know (which isn't much) MQA files can be used with players that don't have MQA decoding, they just ignores the MQA stuff, it sounds as if that's what's happening.  I don't have any MQA files locally to test it with Studio and I have no interest in buying any but I'll see if I can download a free clip or test file of some sort. I seem to remember 2L posting something about free test files.  I'll check and get back to you.

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2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

I found what the problem is with Audirvana 3.5.

 

I renamed the music file from "01 Take It Easy.flac" to "01 Take It Easy.mqa.flac" (this is the name format used when purchasing MQA downloads).  Now, Audirvana recognizes this as MQA.  Quirky,  Yet my less than $10 Android app recognizes either as MQA.

Thanks, that's good to know. The hacker in me now wants to know what'll happen if you add the ".mqa" to a file that isn't MQA. lol. I'll give it a try tomorrow, getting a bit late for me.

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6 minutes ago, OldHardwareTech said:

Thanks, that's good to know. The hacker in me now wants to know what'll happen if you add the ".mqa" to a file that isn't MQA. lol. I'll give it a try tomorrow, getting a bit late for me.

 

Let me know how it turns out.  Also, if you have a dropbox or something, I can send you an MQA file.

mQa is dead!

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12 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Let me know how it turns out.  Also, if you have a dropbox or something, I can send you an MQA file.

They deleted my post, probably because I put that link in. No biggie, I saw that you got it before it was taken down. In my defense I was a bit groggy at the time and if I'd actually been alert I'd have IM'd it to you.

 

Anyway, I downloaded the MQA file put it in a folder with a flac of Meatloaf's Alive that I had renamed to alive.mqa.flac and played them. Audirvana Studio did recognize the file you sent as MQA, and it didn't recognize the renamed copy of Alive as MQA but played it as straight HD flac. Lastly I renamed easy.mqa.flac to easy.flac and Audirvana Studio displayed and played it as HD but not MQA. So it can't determine a misnamed MQA file is MQA but it can determine a flac file misnamed as MQA isn't actually MQA. Odd, but certainly not the worst behavior it could have had. Here's what Audirvana Studio displayed:

 

AS Easy MQA.png

AS Alive renmd MQA.png

AS Easy renmd wo MQA.png

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