I didn't see it coming (Tidal replacing albums with MQA only)

There is 3 version of the album both places.

And Roon chooses the best version :grinning:

Thats’s BS. Everyone (almost) can get it. You need only need VPN under registration. And choose country.

Isn’t that strictly against Qobuz rules, I must be too honest :joy:

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I made the switch to Qobuz about a few months back (annual plan to save a little money) and prefer the sound. You used the term “sibilant” which I think is right on.

I am occasionally frustrated by catalog gaps in Qobuz so it’s not perfect.

Not true. You need payment method registered in a country where Qobuz operates when you sign up.

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6 posts were merged into an existing topic: MQA and DRM - an opinion from the EFF

@CrystalGipsy how are you getting on with Qobuz now? Do you still hold the same view regarding Roon Radio with Qobuz only?

I’m out of an 18 month TIDAL deal and back to £19.99 a month; Qobuz comes in at £12.49 so I will move unless this is a real issue; Radio is important to me for discovery.

I reckon the Qobuz catalogue is much better now and most of the albums that were missing 18 months ago are now available.

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I have had Qobuz since Roon added it and the library has grown which is part of why I ditched Tidal as having both was expensive, but Radio is far better when you have the best of both worlds ( when it wasn’t playing MQA ). Radio just isn’t as good no matter what way I look at it even though the catalogues grown. Not sure if this is down to bad metadata from Qobuz or Qobuz users in Roon don’t play my type of music and it’s just not making links, but It’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s been ok but it starts to repeat way too often after a while. Today I posted in my support thread on it another instance of its ineptness repeated two artists and albums in 5 tracks. I do miss the difference having Tidal brought and feel I am missing out on new music. Also bit added anything new from Radio since I ditched Tidal so maybe there is something in it.

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Roon Radio is far better with Tidal than with Qobuz, or Qobuz alone. ~7 of 8 picks would come from Tidal when I had both.

I set my Settings, Services, Tidal to HiFi instead of Master and Radio still mostly picks a non-mqa version despite only mqa showing.

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Are you saying TIDAL is better for Radio or they are equally effective for you?

Tidal is better for me with Radio, seems more accurate and varied and I get fewer ‘wow that doesn’t fit’ selections.

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I post this as someone who has no objection to listening to MQA, but I have read the following several times (my emphasis added), and I don’t understand it - the MQA encoding in some cases contains more information than is accessible when playing the master? Being perceptually equivalent to playing the master I might buy, but accessing more information than was in the master? Really?

“When MQA encodes a 16b 44.1kHz Master the resulting full MQA file is also 44.1kHz/16b. Despite being 16b, this file contains all the information for decoding and rendering. These MQA encodings also contain all of the information accessible when playing the original master and in some cases more.”

This is my findings to, which is very annoying since I ditched it.

A series of articles here

I’ve been trialing Qobuz alongside TIDAL for a few days now–occasionally disabling TIDAL–and the results have been comparable in many areas; Jury still out regarding folk and Americana.

Didn’t you realise that MQA can also fold time and space?

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Ahh, love those Dune references.

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I got stuck at HHG :stuck_out_tongue:Dune was too complicated

I have tons in this genre Martin and haven’t been disappointed. Pretty much everything came across in the mass conversion with Soundiiz.

The one disappointment has been there isn’t a comparable new-release browse filter in Qobuz, but the library is there.

Thanks @anon55914447. Yes, it would seem that pretty much everything came across using Soundiiz. Of the 2,953 TIDAL releases around 300 weren’t matched, but so far (I’m up to M) only 29 releases aren’t in Qobuz. I can live with this.

My concern was how well Roon Radio would work with Qobuz. So far, I think it’s fine, so will likley cancel TIDAL at the end of the month. The £90 I save this year will go toward filling the few gaps.

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