TIDAL "Master"? Is this MQA on TIDAL?

[Scotty100]

So why TITAL are creating this chaos? Double album, no clear indication if the undecoded MQA is listenable in a standard system, etc.

After the initial excitement there is now only disappointment.

Chaos and disappointment, yup, just about sums up my experience trying to stream Tidal lossless via their Ipad app and a chromecast audio. Doesn't work and no explanation other than an acknowledgement that it doesn't work. Mind you, they still take the $20/mnth for the pleasure of not providing the service they are charging for...

 

All a bit amateurish down Tidal way I think. Time they got their act together.

[Arjay]

I'm very impressed with the few Master tracks I've auditioned via Windows 10 application passed through to Benchmark via USB.

Greater tone saturation, high end sparkle, articulate tight bass and drum pitches. No complaint here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[johnwilk]

Compared just one track, Beyonce's Hold Up, first streaming from Tidal desktop app on Mac, Tidal Master, through Brooklyn DAC. MQA light doesn't show, but does indicate 32/44.1 resolution and sounds very good. Then Tidal hifi version via Audirvana also through Brooklyn DAC. MQA light comes on! Shows 16/44.1, but sound is definitely superior to desktop version. In fact it's wonderful. Problem is that via Audirvana can't find Master recordings – have to check out on Desktop first...

 

Just an update – Dr John's Gris Gris sounds mesmerising in MQA.

[One and a half]

I'm very impressed with the few Master tracks I've auditioned via Windows 10 application passed through to Benchmark via USB.

Greater tone saturation, high end sparkle, articulate tight bass and drum pitches. No complaint here.

 

 

That would bring the sound closer to the red-book standard and if that's the trick, they need to do, then that's what Tidal need to do.

 

Side by side comparison of a red-book playing and through (non MQA) Tidal few weeks ago, the Tidal offering was lacking very much in dynamics, resolve. life and just about anything else. If music discovery has a higher than SQ priority, Apple or Spotify can assist.

 

Does the MQA file come with a certificate that it's the real deal from Warner?

[arcman]

Well, I switched Tidal desktop OSX to "exclusive" and non tidal audio goes thru computer speakers. However, once you quit Tidal, everything goes back to your Audio Midi set up. This is great I'm very Happy now!!

[wklie]

Does the MQA file come with a certificate that it's the real deal from Warner?

MQA files are authenticated by MQA decoder to show MQA LED.

 

If the file went through any digital volume or digital processing the MQA LED will not light up.

[ecwl]

I see a lot of confusion over Tidal Masters/MQA playback sample rate using the Tidal app. This is really unfortunate because Tidal actually doesn't list the original sample rate and I'm not sure if OS X Tidal app actually automatically changes sample rate. For my PC Tidal app when connected to my Chord Mojo via USB, I can see that Beyonce/2L/Bruno Mars were playing back at 88kHz whereas The Doors/Buena Vista Social Club were playing at 96kHz. The switching of sample rates is automatic. Playing regular Tidal HiFi files are still 44.1kHz. I think we will all have some learning curves getting Tidal Masters working for our own systems.

[maelob]

I see a lot of confusion over Tidal Masters/MQA playback sample rate using the Tidal app. This is really unfortunate because Tidal actually doesn't list the original sample rate and I'm not sure if OS X Tidal app actually automatically changes sample rate. For my PC Tidal app when connected to my Chord Mojo via USB, I can see that Beyonce/2L/Bruno Mars were playing back at 88kHz whereas The Doors/Buena Vista Social Club were playing at 96kHz. The switching of sample rates is automatic. Playing regular Tidal HiFi files are still 44.1kHz. I think we will all have some learning curves getting Tidal Masters working for our own systems.

 

That is exactly my frustration, my IMAC does not seem to be changing the MIDI audio setting when playing master exclusive. and I don't know what is the sample rate on the master to change it manually. My DAC just shows 44.1k thats it. Am i doing something wrong?

[maelob]

Just figured it out for my iMac , under the settings/streaming I clicked on the little tool icon by my dac name, clicked exclusive and now my dac is automatically changing rate. beautiful now we are talking....

[MrTHX]

Is there some confusing happening here with the mention of MQA in the press release? I have the 'Masters' selection working using Mac and the Tidal desktop app (not to be confused with the Tidal web access) and the albums I'm playing come through as 24/96 quality on my Chord 2Qute..... but I know the 2Qute doesn't decode MQA so is this Tidal sending a 'vanilla' 24/96 stream or maybe a default if the DAC isn't MQA enabled etc?

[granosalis]

Is there some confusing happening here with the mention of MQA in the press release? I have the 'Masters' selection working using Mac and the Tidal desktop app (not to be confused with the Tidal web access) and the albums I'm playing come through as 24/96 quality on my Chord 2Qute..... but I know the 2Qute doesn't decode MQA so is this Tidal sending a 'vanilla' 24/96 stream or maybe a default if the DAC isn't MQA enabled etc?

 

I think this is the most confusing part of the Tital implementation of MQA. No clear understanding of what the software decoding is doing and if the hardware decoding is better and in which degree.

But for now, using the Tital windows app I'm hearing Fleetwood mac as never before.

[firedog]

Well, I finally got it to work on my non-MQA dac. I set the DAC driver to 24/96. Everything plays at 24/96. I'm guessing that's not what's intended. At other settings I couldn't get playback.

[jag09]

The thing works as expected for me. My setup is Macbook -> Optical cable -> Bel Canto DAC3 (optical in is limited to 96/24, the DAC upsamples everything to 192/24).

 

Here's how to configure it on a Mac:

 

- In the OS X Tidal App go streaming settings, click on your output and click the setting gear which shows up. Select Exclusive mode.

- Now Tidal will be able to tell OS X to adjust your device (built-in output for me) bit rate/depth as needed, which you can observe changing in OS X "Audio MIDI Setup".

- Some songs play in 88/24, some in 96/24. Audio MIDI shows different rates depending on the song.

- It sounds different. A bit more detailed/less mellow to me.

 

If you don't use exclusive mode OS X will upsample or downsample the Tidal stream to whatever your Audio MIDI rates are.

 

There's also a MQA passthrough mode in the settings of your output channel. It says that this disables Tidal's software MQA decoder. I expected this to stream out a lower bit rate MQA stream (44-48/24) to your DAC (which would then unfold it), but it's still streaming in the same bit rate as when MQA passthrough is disabled (88-96).

[Andyman]

Will be the only way until Roon supports software decoding.

 

I can't see MQA agreeing to this. Who then would purchase MQA hardware...?

[MrTHX]

I can't see MQA agreeing to this. Who then would purchase MQA hardware...?

 

It appears that Audirvana Plus have secured this given their announcement today re: Version 3 being able to decode MQA?

[Dr Tone]

Apparently MQA software decoding is a generic profile. What that means in comparison to a specific profile direct in DAC is the question?

[miguelito]

I can't see MQA agreeing to this. Who then would purchase MQA hardware...?

They already have, Tidal decodes in software, Audirvana has announced they will as well, and Roon has indicated in their forums that they also will do this. Expect Auralic and others like that as well.

 

 

If MQA is not widely adopted there's no hardware to be sold! Plus you can always argue that hardware decoding is better than software decoding because the very last stage, ie DACV profiling, can be done.

[miguelito]

Apparently MQA software decoding is a generic profile. What that means in comparison to a specific profile direct in DAC is the question?

My understanding is it involves corrections to the data so that the output is flat. This involves both frequency response and phase response (which is akin to "time deblurring" in the frequency domain). So the "generic PCM profile" would not make any corrections whereas an MQA DAC is supposed to include those correction in the final stage.

 

 

If you think about how a DAC works today, the DAC chips are supposed to be as perfect as possible, ie they are designed to require the least corrections possible. Are they perfectly "flat" in frequency and phase response? Probably not, and that is what MQA tries to fix in the last stage of hardware decoding - at least that's what they claim.

 

 

If you really think about it, this is a minor correction compared to such effects as your room of course.

[miguelito]

I think this is the most confusing part of the Tital implementation of MQA. No clear understanding of what the software decoding is doing and if the hardware decoding is better and in which degree.

But for now, using the Tital windows app I'm hearing Fleetwood mac as never before.

This is my understanding of the MQA process (there are variants depending on the master source, this is an example:

 

-1- High-resolution master (say 24/192) is modified to remove time-smearing

 

-2- Result of '1' is encoded into a 24/48 FLAC file - this is the "folding" - this is done by taking:

a- The information below 48KHz sample rate, with a resolution of 16 bits

b- The information above 48KHz sample rate, with a lower resolution and removal of some stuff you "cannot hear", and encoding this in 8 bit resolution and a sample rate of 48KHz. A special 'MQA' recipe is used to do this

c- a+b produce the 24bit/48KHz file you get

 

-3- Decoding of the higher frequency component is done by reversing the steps in '2', rendering a 24/192 file that is NOT identical to the 24/192 file produced in '1', but the differences "cannot be heard"

 

-4- The decoded stream from '3' is further modified based on a DAC profile and converted to analog

 

In hardware decoding in an MQA DAC you get 1-4. In software decoding you get 1-3.

[austinpop]

This is my understanding of the MQA process (there are variants depending on the master source, this is an example:

 

-1- High-resolution master (say 24/192) is modified to remove time-smearing

 

-2- Result of '1' is encoded into a 24/48 FLAC file - this is the "folding" - this is done by taking:

a- The information below 48KHz sample rate, with a resolution of 16 bits

b- The information above 48KHz sample rate, with a lower resolution and removal of some stuff you "cannot hear", and encoding this in 8 bit resolution and a sample rate of 48KHz. A special 'MQA' recipe is used to do this

c- a+b produce the 24bit/48KHz file you get

 

-3- Decoding of the higher frequency component is done by reversing the steps in '2', rendering a 24/192 file that is NOT identical to the 24/192 file produced in '1', but the differences "cannot be heard"

 

-4- The decoded stream from '3' is further modified based on a DAC profile and converted to analog

 

In hardware decoding in an MQA DAC you get 1-4. In software decoding you get 1-3.

 

Thanks for laying this out so clearly. It matches my understanding too.

 

It sounds like the Tidal App on Mac/Win, set in exclusive mode, is doing 1-3. In the "MQA passthorugh" mode, assuming an MQA DAC, you should get 1-4.

 

For those of us with non-MQA DACs that we really love, the MQA SW decode option sounds very promising. However the question is - which vendors are licensing it. My streamer (Aries Mini) vendor AURALiC made a bizarre announcement today

 

MQA is now live on TIDAL!

For those who has a MQA certificated DAC and want to try it out, please log off and log in TIDAL account in Lightning DS (to enable MQA content) and set volume in Lightning DS to 100 (to disable signal process) then try those MQA content, you will see some magic there.

To those who do not have MQA certificated DAC, dont worry, we are also working on a private software based MQA decoder to send signal to your DAC using AURALiC's latest upsampling algorithm. (Disclaimer: this is not going to use any MQA property software code.)

 

That bolded sentence is the bizarre part. It sounds like they want to do a step 3', defined as:

 

3': taked the folded MQA content at 24/48, and upsample it to higher resolutions.

 

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Who the heck wants upsampled, unfolded MQA???

 

The irony of this situation is just laughable. This is the same MQA organization that last CES, did an about face and pulled code from AURALiC that enabled MQA decoding in SW. Then we heard all the lofty statements from Bob Stuart and co. about how MQA needed to be "end-to-end."

 

Now, a year later, they do an about face, where the Tidal app does software decoding of MQA after all, even without an MQA DAC.

 

Last CES, I felt the operative word for MQA was hubris. This CES, it seems like the word is comeuppance!

[austinpop]

 

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Who the heck wants upsampled, folded MQA???

 

Well, I just got an email back from AURALiC where they confirmed that this is exactly what the Tidal App is doing too - i.e. upsampling the folded MQA stream. They claim this is why Tidal is calling it Master, and not MQA.

 

I don't know what to believe. I can't test this, as I don't have an MQA DAC that has the "blue light."

[miguelito]

It sounds like the Tidal App on Mac/Win, set in exclusive mode, is doing 1-3. In the "MQA passthorugh" mode, assuming an MQA DAC, you should get 1-4.

Exactly.

 

For those of us with non-MQA DACs that we really love, the MQA SW decode option sounds very promising. However the question is - which vendors are licensing it. My streamer (Aries Mini) vendor AURALiC made a bizarre announcement today...

Well, firstly Auralic has always had trouble with clear English, so I would read that with a grain of salt.

 

 

Auralic had implemented MQA software decoding in the Aries for CES 2016, using a decoder provided by MQA. MQA found out that the solution was decoding into a PCM stream any DAC could use and they pulled the license. I suppose there were quite a few middle fingers involved. I would not be surprised if relations between the two companies are sour. If I were Auralic, and assuming no misreading of the communication that MQA sent to them, I would be pissed.

 

 

From the text you quote I gather Auralic has backward engineered the MQA software decoder that initially MQA provided to them in 2015.

 

 

However, I'm pretty sure Tidal must be using a software decoder provided by MQA. I would expect that Tidal told MQA: "If you don't provide us the ability to decode in the app we are not going to use MQA." Rightfully so.

[miguelito]

This is my understanding of the MQA process (there are variants depending on the master source, this is an example:

 

-1- High-resolution master (say 24/192) is modified to remove time-smearing

 

-2- Result of '1' is encoded into a 24/48 FLAC file - this is the "folding" - this is done by taking:

a- The information below 48KHz sample rate, with a resolution of 16 bits

b- The information above 48KHz sample rate, with a lower resolution and removal of some stuff you "cannot hear", and encoding this in 8 bit resolution and a sample rate of 48KHz. A special 'MQA' recipe is used to do this

c- a+b produce the 24bit/48KHz file you get

 

-3- Decoding of the higher frequency component is done by reversing the steps in '2', rendering a 24/192 file that is NOT identical to the 24/192 file produced in '1', but the differences "cannot be heard"

 

-4- The decoded stream from '3' is further modified based on a DAC profile and converted to analog

 

In hardware decoding in an MQA DAC you get 1-4. In software decoding you get 1-3.

Missed one case: If you do not decode at all and just play the file as a regular FLAC with resolution of 24bit/48KHz, you will effectively be playing a file with resolution of 16bit/48KHz since the 8 least significant bits look like noise if not decoded. So if you do not decode you basically get 1-2a.

[TubeDriver]

I have been playing around with Tidal's Master albums for two days now. I am using a MBP>PS Audio PWD II which is not MQA compliant.

 

I certainly hear a difference between the Master versions and CDs that I ripped and replayed using JRMC21 or the old HiFi versions available on Tidal.

 

But I think I clearly prefer the sound I hear from the Tidal standard Hifi version over the new Master version? The master version sounds muffled and blurred in comparison?

 

My DAC appears to be having a hard time lovking on to the Mastersound version. It has analogue relays that are heard as click when switching between digital formats and I hear it clicking back and forth more tha usual when I first play a Tidal Master recording. There us also a 2 second whine that comes from my speakers after I hear the DAC relays. This ha never happened before with normal redbook or hirez material. Very odd.

 

Listen to Natalie Merchant TigerLilly "Seven Years" in both the orginal HiFi Tidal version and then the Tidal Master version (both versions of the album are available). The original version is clearly better.

[[email protected]]

Tidal crashing...

 

I was successfully playing MASTERS this morning through my Explorer2. Tidal set to Exclusive, Fixed Volume, Passthrough MQA.

 

Now anything I play in Tidal causes an app crash. MASTER or HIFI. Crash

 

Anyone else having problems with Windows Tidal?