Regardless, which sounds better, TIDAL does not deliver what they promise: lossless CD-quality
1 Like
No, I want lossless CD-quality, which I can play without using special hardware with additional licensing costs.
Flac is only a container.
3 Likes
I notice a lot of of the additional MQA files are only 16 bit, not 24. Why is this? Some were 24bit but have since been downgraded. Too many to list actually. And a lot of them my favourites, so this really annoys! Particularly after the announcement of full MQA additions. Help me understand.
There was a big post about this by Bob Stuart. So much material is only in 16/44.1
Some of the files were in a 24 bit by error although this made no difference to the audio quality. This has and is being corrected. Your signal path in Roon should confirm what’s happening.
Link here
And so the MQA is only available in 16/44.1, makes sense. But … why are a lot of albums ALSO available in 24/96?
Either there is another reason for the 16/44.1 version and it is not best available version or the 24/96 is only a upsample.
One example:
That I don’t know, the 16/44 may well be the MQA physical CD release.
But how did this fit with the ‘best available version’ promise?
Well, they are both available… pick the highest number
I would expect someone with pretty firm views, telling us we had an “agenda”, would have a reasonably basic grasp of what the thread was about. But it appears not.
1 Like
No problem: Lossless means that the file can be reconverted to the original PCM-file (of the CD if you talk about CD-quality) and the result is an exact 1:1 copy of the original.
1 Like
How to make Qobuz sound like Tidal:
Meridian Questionable Agenda
AJ
1 Like
If I didn’t want MQA, I would drop Tidal.
1 Like
Mmmm… Not getting into the whole “yay MQA/barf MQA” discussion.
What I experienced is a steep, noticeable decline in SQ from Tidal. SQ from Qobuz is excellent (at this point in tlme).
I don’t care about the format or the container, I care about how it sounds. Tidal now sounds worse than before and this happens to coincide with the repackaging of 44.1 as MQA (which doesn’t make sense to me).
I’m not stating causality here.
1 Like
You do not pay extra for MQA on Tidal. Same price a CD quality.
1 Like
But for many albums I don’t get CD quality anymore, only MQA. I only want what I pay for.
2 Likes
If you don’t like Tidal’s strategy I suggest you find another source for music. Neither Tidal nor the record labels care whether you believe you are getting inferior SQ when listening to MQA releases without a MQA compatible DAC.
As long as the major players such as MSB, dCS, Meitner and Esoteric along with more mainstream manufacturers such as Lumin, Aurender, PS Audio, TEAC, Arcam, Onkyo… deliver MQA capable products we will continue to see MQA titles grow.
2 Likes
Lads, I’m not sure whether you’ve been on Pluto while this thread has been developing, but that’s EXACTLY what we’ve done. Cheers.
1 Like
Problem is that some of us do not have a choice as Qobuz is not available here. Would be great to have some other option like Amazon as well.
1 Like
Someone will be along shortly to help you along with an infuriatingly trite reply like “you should just buy all your music then”.