andyv

Well, it's up now. All I get is a picture of a cactus and a "Hello World". And nothing else. Hopeless!

Still 50% finished. But less time to go. Does anyone get paid for this?

Oh no! It is now 2 days 17 hours and 12 minutes to go! But strangely it is the same 50% finished as it was days ago! Maybe they need to upgrade the power supply on their web developers ...

The website has been down for days. Now it is saying 0 days 0 hours 0 minutes left, but 50% done. What is going on!?

It is a very disappointing album imo. Sort of Diana Krall trying to be "Diana Krall" all breathy and dinner party jazz. She is a much better musician than this album lets her be.

DM - Once again, thank you. A superb and comprehensive study.

DM - outstanding work, thank you very much for doing it, and for sharing it. Very much looking forward to reading about the other products mentioned in the thread title. Thanks again.

But .. in the case of CD and SACD they were two distinct layers; in the case of MQA the two resolutions are wrapped up in the same package. An SACD layer did not degrade the CD layer, but with MQA there are arguments that the non-decoded version is actually inferior to a red book version because 3 of the 16 bits are used to "hide" MQA information and will so playback as noise unless you have a decoder. This is what the wiki says: "MQA-encoded content can be carried via any lossless file format such as FLAC or ALAC; hence, it can be played back on systems either with or without an MQA decoder. In the latter case, the resulting audio has easily-identifiable high-frequency noise occupying 3 LSB bits, thus limiting playback on legacy devices effectively to 13bit. MQA claims that nevertheless the quality is higher than "normal" 48/16, because of the novel sampling and convolution processes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated Note I have no idea whether this is actually true though, as there is no citation.

The DAC manufacturers that paid the licensing to put MQA magic inside their DACs are unlikely to be pleased if Tidal does it all. If Tidal did do a full MQA decode, then every DAC would be MQA ready without doing anything.

Great. imo it is really important to establish whether or not you need an MQA enabled device to get the full version. Tidal claim that they deliver " an authenticated and unbroken version (typically 96 kHz / 24 bit) with the highest-possible resolution". If this needs an MQA enabled DAC to experience, then it should be made clear.

and as for " Chord's John Franks talked about how important physical CDs are to people and that the Blu mk II was really to bring out the best in CD playback. He went on to say people should have CDs, collect them, pass them down to children etc... And, that it's his belief that the "downloading generation" is missing the tangible quality and that people like cd collections. CD is important to John and he made if very clear. " he should really listen to his children! CD is a legacy medium. It is finished. Over. Done and dusted. History. The past. Gone. You can pass playlists down to your kids - or even better, ask your kids for their playlists! I hated my CD collection, stupid plastic cases, minuscule print in tiny booklets, impossible to browse. Good riddance! I'm as likely to buy this as I am to buy a wind up gramophone.

Not sure you are right about full MQA decoding being available in software, at least from Audirvana. Here is what MQA say: ". Audirvana Plus 3 (available end of January 2017) integrates the MQA Core Decoder, enabling to get the full MQA quality with MQA devices, including the renderer only ones. Users who don’t have a MQA capable device will also benefit from the 2x sample rate of MQA streams thanks to the decoder in Audirvana Plus 3 that performs the unfolding." So to get "full MQA quality" from Audirvana you will need an MQA device or renderer, otherwise you just get a higher sample rate. http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/our-partners/audirvana-partner-page

In the UK at least Chord are offering a free case with every mojo purchased before 14th January. The case retails there at £65, and the mojo at £400, so that's quite a decent discount. Have sales slowed perhaps, or did they make too many cases?!

Hi, can you please explain how or if the iSilencer3.0 and the iDefender can be used together? I have an iPurifier2 (and an iUSB). Do either of these new products improve on it? (I have no particular need for USB3.0). Is an iUSB3.0 better? Your product range has got a bit confusing!

To avoid me being irritated by these "teases" could you please tell me when you plan to release some more concrete information?