MQA Mystery

[Norton]

I was looking for this in 16/44 on Tidal:

 

https://tidal.com/album/119924589

 

but was surprised, as a BIS release, that this  was offered as MQA and even more so (as far as my searches proved) only in MQA.

 

But streaming  from the Tidal desktop client, I just get “HiFi level” playback and my (non MQA) DAC registers 44 kHz incoming.

 

What do you think, just normal 16/44 mislabelled  by Tidal as MQA or something else?

[daverich4]

51 minutes ago, Norton said:

I was looking for this in 16/44 on Tidal:

 

https://tidal.com/album/119924589

 

but was surprised, as a BIS release, that this  was offered as MQA and even more so (as far as my searches proved) only in MQA.

 

But streaming  from the Tidal desktop client, I just get “HiFi level” playback and my (non MQA) DAC registers 44 kHz incoming.

 

What do you think, just normal 16/44 mislabelled  by Tidal as MQA or something else?

I think it’s mislabeled. Roon sees it as non-MQA and plays it as straight 16/44.

[Norton]

5 hours ago, daverich4 said:

I think it’s mislabeled. Roon sees it as non-MQA and plays it as straight 16/44.

 

Thanks.  However, I’ve just tried it to my Oppo205 which is showing format as Flac (MQA) , OFS as 44Khz and Bit rate as 24, so I guess there must also be an MQA  flag in the stream  itself 

[daverich4]

38 minutes ago, Norton said:

 

Thanks.  However, I’ve just tried it to my Oppo205 which is showing format as Flac (MQA) , OFS as 44Khz and Bit rate as 24, so I guess there must also be an MQA  flag in the stream  itself 

I wonder if we’re looking at different files for some reason? When I search for that album with Roon it only comes up with the one version. If there was an MQA flag in it I would  think Roon would know it. In any event, both Roon and my Auralic Vega think the one I’m listening to is 16/44.

[Norton]

19 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I wonder if we’re looking at different files for some reason?

 

I suspect it’s the same file.  It just shows normal “HiFi” playback for  me too in Tidal desktop, but something in the stream is making my Oppo see it as MQA, although without decoding  (unfortunately, as far as I know, the Oppo just shows whatever the MQA tags tell it to, not the rate it’s actually playing at).  My guess is that it is playing at 16/44.

 

 

 

 

[Miska]

MQA CD stream perhaps? Like the 2L RedBook format albums that appeared in Qobuz?

 

You CAN also have 44.1/24 MQA in a 44.1/24 container... Like the Carl Nielsen here: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html (made from 44.1/16 original recording, the MQA version is more than double the size!)

 

[Norton]

On 11/18/2019 at 11:26 PM, Miska said:

MQA CD stream perhaps

 

I’ve realised since that it’s just one track(#9 in vol1) that is MQA (or tagged as such) while the rest aren’t.

 

Odd though.