Perhaps MQA isn’t quite dead just yet...

[daverich4]

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/01/07/ces-2019-tidal-masters-on-all-android-devices-and-mqa-momentum/

[Taz777]

Is this related to the exclusive rights to LG coming to an end?

[Hugo9000]

Is that source any better than the National Enquirer?  (I almost wrote Weekly World News, but then I remembered their expert reportage on the Bat Boy.)

[Rt66indierock]

3 hours ago, daverich4 said:

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/01/07/ces-2019-tidal-masters-on-all-android-devices-and-mqa-momentum/

 

Sorry there aren't enough subscribers to Tidal Masters for this to matter. 

[Dr Tone]

It’s been reported that gapless isn’t working with it.  It’s like they are trying to fail!

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

It’s been reported that gapless isn’t working with it.  It’s like they are trying to fail!

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

[new_media]

Do most Android phones even have a DAC capable of handling higher bit rates natively?

 

I would guess that in most cases the TIDAL app is origami-unfolding MQA only to have it converted to 16/48 before it hits the DAC, in which case I would rather just have the lossless stream in the first place.

 

As far as putting in MQA in cars... No reason a car stereo couldn't handle lossless 24/192 and DSD if you really want to go there.

 

MQA continue to be a solution in search of a problem.

[Dr Tone]

28 minutes ago, mansr said:

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

 

I assume the first unfold would be all that was happening in the app at this point so a half assed implementation seems to be plausable in this case.

[mav52]

26 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

 

I assume the first unfold would be all that was happening in the app at this point so a half assed implementation seems to be plausable in this case.

 

And I just don't see all of these smartphone users paying $20.00 a month to get MQA music.

[Hugo9000]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

Thank you, that's an extremely important point for classical music listeners, and it's especially shameful that the "press" has not mentioned this anywhere that I have seen.

 

Gapless may be rarely needed in pop/rock (although even in my very tiny collection of those genres, there are a number of albums that transition smoothly between tracks, Crystal Gayle's classic Christmas album, for one off the top of my head lol), but it's essential for playback of opera recordings, any work with variations that are assigned individual track numbers, as well as plenty of symphonies and concerti where the composer eschewed silence between movements and the work continues seamlessly, such as the transition from the 2nd to 3rd movement in Rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto.  If MQA cannot handle such transitions flawlessly/inaudibly, then it is not ready for prime time and has no business being called or remotely considered to be high resolution/high quality at all.  It is broken for classical just as non-gapless MP3 was.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, mav52 said:

 

And I just don't see all of these smartphone users paying $20.00 a month to get MQA music.

 

Of course not.  But you can use the same Tidal account on any device including desktop and/or laptop, dedicated streamer, etc.

[lucretius]

2 hours ago, Dr Tone said:

 

I assume the first unfold would be all that was happening in the app at this point so a half assed implementation seems to be plausable in this case.

 

No! Surprisingly, the Android Tidal App will do the full unfold. I sent an MQA file from my phone to a non-MQA dac and it is getting 192k sample rate. OTH, the USB Audio Player PRO (Android) app will only do the first unfold.

 

[Taz777]

44 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Of course not.  But you can use the same Tidal account on any device including desktop and/or laptop, dedicated streamer, etc.

 

That's exactly what I'm doing. I use my one Tidal HiFi account on four devices (desktop, tablet, mobile phone and network streamer). My iFi Nano dac and streamer are MQA compatible although hardly any of my music collection is MQA.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

 

Maybe so, but I'm getting gapless playback from the Android Tidal App, output sent to a Marantz HD-AMP1 amp/dac. I can play MQA tracks at random with no problem and no gap*.

 

*At least no gap most of the time -- occasionally there is a wait while the buffer is being loaded -- this does not happen on playlists, just when selecting tracks at random.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Dr Tone said:

I assume the first unfold would be all that was happening in the app at this point so a half assed implementation seems to be plausable in this case.

 

Well, given that MQA is half assed pseudo hires, it doesn't really matter if their own upsampling filters are missing...

 

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, Miska said:

Well, given that MQA is half assed pseudo hires, it doesn't really matter if their own upsampling filters are missing...

The core decoder also glitches on track transitions.

[lucretius]

45 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Maybe so, but I'm getting gapless playback from the Android Tidal App, output sent to a Marantz HD-AMP1 amp/dac. I can play MQA tracks at random with no problem and no gap*.

 

*At least no gap most of the time -- occasionally there is a wait while the buffer is being loaded -- this does not happen on playlists, just when selecting tracks at random.

 

The Android Tidal app also plays gapless to the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+.  OTH, interestingly, the USB Audio Player PRO (Android) app will not play MQA files gaplessly.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

No! Surprisingly, the Android Tidal App will do the full unfold. I sent an MQA file from my phone to a non-MQA dac and it is getting 192k sample rate. OTH, the USB Audio Player PRO (Android) app will only do the first unfold .

 

 

Similarly, the Android Tidal App will do the full* unfold when the file sent to the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+. Also, l get 96k on the Dragonfly Red DAC.

 

* I tried changing the streaming quality in the app and no matter what I set it at, the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ indicates 192k and this includes when playing non-MQA material. Therefore, perhaps the app is just doing plain old upsampling? The DAC is not detecting an MQA stream. Strangely, the DAC is indicating 192k and 22 bit (not 24 bit).

 

On the other hand, the DAC does recognize an MQA stream coming from the USB Audio Player PRO (Android) app and upsamples from 96k* to 192k, when appropriate. And when the TIDAL file from USB Audio Player PRO is non-MQA, the DAC plays it at the native sample/bit rate as it should.

 

*unfortunately, there is no way to send the MQA file through untouched without the software doing the first unfold.

 

 

[Taz777]

I wonder if the iOS Tidal app will follow suit in due course.

[mav52]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Of course not.  But you can use the same Tidal account on any device including desktop and/or laptop, dedicated streamer, etc.

Good point ,

[wklie]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

 

Disagree.

If an album is meant to be gapless, I'm sure the people doing the relevant encoding job can take care of that.

 

I also believe some MQA CD are also encoded from long continuous streams.

 

We have been supporting gapless Tidal Masters and Qobuz Hi-Res for a long time and no customer has complained about the type of glitch caused by the format itself as quoted.

[asdf1000]

14 hours ago, mansr said:

MQA is inherently incompatible with gapless playback since the filters might need to be reconfigured between tracks, even on the same album.

 

This live album is playing gaplessly (Tidal MQA96kHz) with Roon doing the 1st unfold to a non-MQA DAC.

 

I haven't tried with an MQA DAC (iFi DAC) yet though.

 

[KeenObserver]

The MQA investors must see a boatload of money in the future the way they keep trying to jam MQA down the throats of the music community.

[Taz777]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

 

This live album is playing gaplessly (Tidal MQA96kHz) with Roon doing the 1st unfold to a non-MQA DAC.

 

I haven't tried with an MQA DAC (iFi DAC) yet though.

 

 

That album played gapless for me using Tidal desktop on macOS to a non-MQA DAC (Topping D50) and also to an MQA DAC (iFi Nano iDSD BL). On the iFi Nano the indicator LED turned magenta to confirm MQA Hi-Res.

[mansr]

It's obviously possible to send the samples decoded from MQA files to a DAC without interruptions. That doesn't mean there won't be a slight glitch at track changes. Here are a couple of scope images showing what the iFi DACs do when "rendering" a 1 kHz test signal with a filter change.

 

 

On Tidal, tracks in the same album often use different rendering filters. Even when they don't, the core decoder is restarted for each track, and this can also cause a slight discontinuity. The MQA CDs I've seen partial rips from seem to be encoded as a single stream, however. Of course, MQA CDs are utterly pointless in the first place.