Many MQA albums have been removed and not replaced with other versions

Roon Software Discussion TIDAL
1

I hope this is the right place to post this question. If not please advise me where to post it.

I previously had hundreds of MQA albums from Tidal in my Roon library. Now a search of “Albums” for MQA shows only three.

I understand Roon is now offering access to what Tidal calls MAX albums instead. And I understand that Roon insures that one sees the specific bit rate and accurate kHz number.

However it seems that among the albums in my collection the old MQA versions have not been replaced with the new, non-MQA Hi Rez versions.

I’m not complaining about that.

However I don’t understand why the count of albums in my collection has not changed. Many MQA albums have been removed and not replaced with other versions. Why is my Roon album count still the same?

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2

If your Roon library album count of Tidal albums has not changed, then missing MQA albums have obviously been replaced with non-MQA. Some of mine have been replaced. Others still say MQA in Roon but are actually lossless CD quality or high resolution, and some are still MQA. It will take a while for that to shake out in the Tidal/Roon integration.

3

Most of my Tidal MQA albums have been changed to Flac MAX, but not all. Some remain as MQA: I guess there is no alternative Flac version.
I think non went “missing” in the translation as album count looks the same.
Also, please note that it took > 1hr for the change and in that period albums “disappeared” for a while to “reappear” progressively

4

I made an Excel export of tidal albums, and MQA albums before the update, I’ll check where things are in a few days to see where things have landed. It’s confusing right now

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5

That’s what I thought also, but it does not appear to be the case. I’ve looked for albums that I know I had in my library as an MQA version, that are not there in any version now.

Perhaps as you say things will “shake out.”

6

Then, this can’t be true.

7

I can see my own account and you can’t. But you know better what it shows and what it doesn’t.

It’s silly to argue about this and I don’t intend to.

As you wrote originally, it may take a while for this to shake out.

8

I have about 1 100 albums from my Tidal Hifi Plus account and after my Roon upgrade yesterday, I can see that only 11 of them now has the format FLAC 192/24! Is this a representive figure for the total Tidal library or do I need to change some settings to receive higher quality?

9

Have you done a library clean-up? Under settings → library?
I think albums that have disappeared from a streaming service are still ‘there’ somewhere in your database. A clean-up will remove these artifacts and reduce your album count.

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10

That has never changed the album count in my Roon library. I just cleaned up my Roon library and deleted 240 files and the Roon library album count did not change. It never has.

Those are files or remnants of files but not albums shown in your Roon library.

11

That will be because they are not available at 192/24. Most albums are not even on Qobuz. You are not automatically going to get all at that resolution .

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12

Thanks. I’ll give it a try.

13

Another question; does anyone know why there on some albums shows ”Mixed formats”, when the complete album source, according to Roon are FLAC 44/24?

14

No - but if my experience is typical, it will likely be different tomorrow…

I think the dust is still settling.

15

I just did a deep dive on what’s left in MQA.

Over 1300 in MQA out of over 6700 Tidal albums in my collection.
1250 in 44k MQA
104 in 48k MQA
2 in 88k MQA
9 in 96k MQA
3 in 192k MQA

So for the most part, the hires replacement is done. Look like they may be in the process of replacing 48k and haven’t started on the 44k ones yet.

The 44k MQA are the most confusing because I don’t even understand while they were needed in the first place. And when compared to standard 16/44 albums, they sounds slightly worse. Soundstage is a little less precise. Probably couldn’t tell difference in blind test though.

Here’s stats on number of hires albums in my Tidal collection. Can see pretty good amount in 96k and 192k.

120 48k
50 in 88k
645 in 96k
7 in 172k
325 in 192k

And compared my Qobuz collection:

390 48k
138 88k
1245 96k
7 172k
480 192k

Twice as many albums 96k and higher. So for now I’m sticking with Qobuz.

The issue is it seems phase 1 is Tidal replacing their MQA with hires files. They still need to backfill their old library with hires files that were never in MQA. Think that’s why Qobuz has twice as many hires for the same collection.

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