How much extra would you be willing to pay Tidal for MQA content?

Loving MQA on my system and wish we had more of it. So far I haven’t paid any extra for it. Would I pay more for a defined quality option? Yes, I think so. I’d need to see the offering but I don’t think I will ever need to.
As I understand things MQA is on a mission to bring better sound to everyone. Well you won’t do that if you ask people to pay more for exclusive access.

Put on your helmet sit back and prepare to be :fire: !

.sjb

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He is correct in making that statement, and it is important to step back and look at the comment in context. If MQA’s stated aim is to become the defacto method of getting ‘better than CD audio’ to everyone, then asking people to pay over the odds to access it would be counterproductive. It may not be worded in a way those who dislike MQA are happy with but it fits within the context of the question asked.

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I’m not suggesting he wasn’t, I’m admiring his bravery!

.sjb

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I would pay Zero.

Finaly people understand… Hard hat on lol

I looked at my statisticsfor the last 12 months, found I have added 125 albums locally (CD rips or downloads), 10 per month, about $200 per month.
I added 1200 Tidal Albums, 100 per month, for $20 per month (I think?), 20 cents per album.
Ok, apples and oranges because I have to keep paying Tidal.
But there is no way I can see Tidal as anything but a screaming bargain.

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I have well over 200,000 lossless files already, and use Tidal HiFi to fill in gaps. Tidal HiFi is already double the price of their “normal” (mp3) subscription, so I would say “No” to paying even more.

$0 and if it was MQA only I would drop Tidal.

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I just checked. 236 of my 2.069 albums on Roon are from Tidal. Out of these 51 are MQA; 589 are 24bit downloads. Since Roon offers the „versions“ option, I’ve looked at all my Tidal bookmarks for a MQA alternative. Since Roon unfolds the first level of MQA files there’s an audible difference in SQ against the Redbook file.
Actually I’m paying 120€/y for Tidal HiFi (Family Plan shared by three). If Tidal offered an „real HighRes option“ I’d pay up to 60€/y extra for it. As MQA is somehow an offer “in between”, I’d consider 30€/y.

I rather have full resolution FLAC streaming than MQA where available.
Although I don’t mind the TIDAL MQA tracks I’ve tried, if the same mastering can be delivered in FLAC full 24b/xxkHz that would be even better.

That’s what you get with MQA. The first unfold gives you 24/96 now and an MQA DAC would deliver the rest if you wanted it.

Where do you find that?

Zero I pay DKK 200 = $31 and that is enough!
It is the free Spotify tier that should pay more not me.
Actually I do not understand why I should pay more for lossless.
I do not buy the higher bit rate argument cost more. I use more data streaming from netflix or HBO and pay less than Tidal hifi.

Agree with your analysis.
At this moment the music world is in transformation. Multiple distribution chains are now running in parallel and Increase the cost. You made a good comparison with Netflix. There big enough now to bypass the movie houses and create their own content. In a few years musicians will sign up directly with a streaming company. That will reduce cost, increase revenue for the musicians and push innovation for music transport over the internet. MQA is just a step in this process. compare it with video that went up from 720 to 1080. Therefore I also see no reason to pay extra for MQA for it’s just a evolutionary step.

Definitely wouldn’t be willing to pay additional fee to have MQA titles which no matter which way you look at it is another lossy format. Have Tidal HiFI now and is satisfied with the balance there.

It’s all Lossy In One way or another…

Hans I agree with your scenario of musicians going directly to the streaming companies in the future. Sort of like people now self publishing their own books and selling on Amazon or other sites directly. There are tradeoffs of course, but the inertia is in this direction for the content creators to go directly to those who face the consumer (streaming or otherwise). The MQA issue is a bit different I sense, because if Apple or Spotify or Amazon or Google “win” the game (or more correctly push Tidal out), then we’ll likely lose MQA largely. Apple has their own means of compressing 24 bit files, Spotify to my knowledge doesn’t even bother as I imagine is true for Amazon and others. And so if we lose MQA we might lose any semblance of HD streaming for quite a while. Personally, the whole lossy MP3 realm was very disturbing to me as I can hear the loss of sound quality. Eventually there will be enhanced streaming algorithms for HD at low bitrates better than MQA, but maybe not for a while. There could of course be real niche players that truly streamed HD audio, but would they by usable in Roon? Right now we’ve got MQA with Tidal via Roon and I personally can hear a sonic improvement with MQA and want to make sure that survives. Some extra $ to enable that is something I’m willing to do and perhaps this MQA phase could help transition us to true HD (non-lossy, but with the ADC and DAC time desmearing aspects still intact - the best of all worlds!)

I would pay 0 for MQA.
I would pay more for integration of a streaming service that provides true HD, or 16/44.1 FLAC without MQA.

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So if we take MQA out of Tidal you’d pay more? Because I don’t think there is any MQA there in isolation. I am pretty sure there is a CD version for every MQA encoded album there.