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

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

I saw “it coming” over two years ago.

MQA first unfold in Roon? MQA? [Delivered in 1.5]

Ok, that’s the one I own. After purchasing it I realized it had disappeared from HDTracks - now I know why. That digital downloads do go “out of print” for non legal reasons is ridiculous. But the record label conglomerates seem fearful that too much choice will be confusing to consumers. And that is another reason why a single inventory MQA future is a distinct – and dangerous – possibility. AJ

And the further danger of a single inventory MQA future is that it likely will infiltrate more than just Tidal. MQA encoded files will get distributed to other providers and stream as unlabeled MQA or even serve as sources for their lossy stream encodes.

AJ