i did not expres myself correctly, I prefere qobuz, their catalogue is more atuned to my taste. I can buy high res with discount prices and stream it in 192Khz. It sucks that it hasn’t Roon intergration but you can’t have it al. I guess it’s like i said before a matter of personal taste.
That’s great – however about half of my listening fare is not available. Or partly available. Or available once and gone later. Or artist discographies are incomplete since they switched labels throughout their careers.
I buy one or two albums each week and like to listen to them at least 10 times before I can tell whether I like them or not. Oftentimes, great music needs to grow on me. Over time, I have carefully built a collection that caters to my tastes exactly. For me, that’s way more valuable than having access to most of the other music ever made.
I understand why streaming services are a good match for some – but it’s definitely not for all of us.
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I agree so utterly, completely and wholeheartedly, Rene, that I would like to give two likes, but I can’t 
Couldn’t have said it better. I love streaming (Spotify, NOT Tidal) to discover (I hate rap and hiphop, I love jazz and world music) but I prefer buying / owning (in the end, when I like something, I want to be in control). To me, streaming is the “cassette tape” of the past: a means to get to know an album and decide if I like it or not (and thus purchase it or not). So it definitely has its use, albeit temporarily.
I’ve seen nothing announced, but when I interviewed Bob Stuart last October, he told me, “We sincerely hope there’s going to be more than [just Tidal]. We’re talking to many [streaming companies].”
Did I understand this correct: You will be able to stream DSD? And you won’t need to have bought the album to do so?
Because as I read in their press release, I thought they meant that you will be able to purchase DSD in the end of this year. And not stream DSD
I am with Tidal atm.
Because I wanted to explore MQA.
The Music I really like, mostly on the ECM label, is not available for streaming.
Neither on Tidal or Qobuz or Spotify. And I think it will never be, at least not in the near future.
Thats why my streaming will be over sooner or later. I dont really use it.
Hi community, I’m looking into the MQA topic for quite a while but I’m still struggling if I should „like“ or „dislike“ it. After some minor challenges I have now a setup (and some samples) where I can compare 16/44 with partial decoded and full unfolded/decoded MQA as well as native (Flac) 24/96 or 24/192 samples. Are they all from an identical master - I doubt. But it’s not the lossy / lossless debate I’m interested in, it’s more the use case and mid- to long term impact of the MQA business model. To make one thing clear, artists, labels, distribution and involved engineering all have to be paid for what we consume. I adapted the introduction of the CD very quickly, and had (a bit unfortunately) replaced my LP collection almost completely already in the late 80’s/beginning of 90’s. Today I buy HighRes download content if available, still CDs if there is no other option, and have subscriptions for Qobuz and TIDAL. But even by using several streaming service, this does not feel like a potential replacement for my small collection to me (an old man). But exactly the way of listening/distribution is key if it comes to MQA in my opinion!
Thoughts & statements (to debate!):
a) If I buy e.g. a 24/192 FLAC/ALAC title today, I can convert it to a different format if required, as long as the target format is also lossless, I still have a bit perfect copy of what I bought. Respecting copy rights, and in it’s technical limits, I should be able to adapt new technology and protect my investment. As long as there is no free, or to be more precise, open source (!), MQA to full unfolded and decoded PCM / wave / … / FLAC converter, I’m limited to a MQA certified platform to consume „my“ music at the highest possible level.
=> Why should I buy content (the rights to consume content) in a format restricting me to specific hardware or reducing the quality?
b) Streaming is a different story, if compression does no (or only limited) damage to the original source - why not using it. Volume/bandwidth matters still in a lot regions, we consume nearly 100 GB every day just for entertainment here, this is easy with multiple high speed lines, but only 5 km away people can get slow DSL lines (2-6 Mbit) max., if they are lucky - so no way for HD TV or HD music streaming. Or what about streaming to your car, who needs 24/192 in a regular/simple car - not me.
=> Here I see valid use case for MQA - provocative: MP3 -> AAC -> MQA. If there will be a newer/better technology in the future, you may have to upgrade parts of your rack and perhaps change your subscription.
=> For home usage I tend to prefer the (not yet available) Qobuz Sublim+ (unmodified 24/„high“)
=> Mobile usage MQA
c) The quality myth: Assuming comparable (identical), well configured equipment, how can anything sound „better“ than the original?!? Bit perfect is bit perfect, anything else is lossy and/or modified- I’m not saying worse! Different is fine, and sometimes I prefer the slightly different MQA output - but, at leased with an affordable equipment, the differences are limited based on my experience. MQA sometimes modifies the result, „psycho acoustic effects“ is one of the phrases one may find in publications around the web, is this what you are looking for? For me this sounds a bit like a of recall of the old „remaster“ story - sometimes I own more than one version of a sample, but I’m happy to have a lot „first/original releases“ in my collection.
=> Sorry, I don’t want someone else setting up the EQ and compression filters for me without notice / configuration options - even if this person / company has far more experience in this area than I have!
Have I missed something, am I too old for this game?
Looking forward for your replies!
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a) You really made a good point here. What happens If there will be no decoder in a few years? You are stuck with your now useless files. I think this will easily be addressed by the software decoders ( Roon, other programs). On the other hand, I don’t think you are limited to MQA hardware, because of the afore mentioned software decoding, you can still listen to MQA on your non-MQA DAC, with supposedly better audio quality
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b) MQA is really a good invention to mobile usage and for the people having slow DSL speeds. But I am also looking forward to the new Sublime+, sounds interesting with the 24bit streaming. But boy, what a price!
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c) Am I correct, that with MQA you always get the studio master? Or can the master be 32bit/384 and you get a 24/192, folded to 16/44? Because then in my eyes you won’t get the master file, as it was DXD and not 24/192, so you are not capable to hear a difference.
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a) I’m not sure if there will be ever a legal / official converter from MQA back to the source format.
b) For sure Sublim+ only works if you can make use of the buying discount, and even than …
c) The first question here is already challenging: What is the studio master? The one for Vinyl, or the CD master - was there an additional radio promo version? This is not easy to validate for my understanding. As far as I got it this is one of the reasons why HighResAudio stays with a limited MQA catalog. The TIDAL offering includes a reasonable amount of (current) masters only based on 24/48 or 24/96 material, but also some more than 30 year old pop/rock titles are unfolded/decoded to 24/192 where I’m only aware of “old” analog masters. Not transparent is a polite phrase, isn’t it? 2L shares more details and seems to publish a consistence story - also available on TIDAL.
For the other part: My equipment stops at 24/192, so I don’t know.
Most of Tidal Masters are re-issue recordings; some old recording are done in the early 80’s are probably 16/44.1 and up-sampled to MQA 24/96 or even 24/192, with exception to some really old analogue recordings. In the broader side of Tidal huge collection I still prefer the lossless FLAC 16/44.1, they contain 99% of all my listening tracks and best of all, it is playable in Roon without any form of decoding. Explore and enjoy your music!
By the way, to further illustrate and balance things a bit, it’s not that I think Spotify is ideal (compared to Tidal). I’ve experienced this annoying disappearing of albums in Spotify too.
For example with Neil Young albums. Listening to Cortez The Killer one day, to find out that the next day, half of the tracks on the albums were gone, seemingly random, and another week later the entire albums were gone.
At first I thought my iPhone was to blame, but I quickly learnt that Mr. Young withdrew his albums to promote his Pono. To which, of course, he is more than entitled, but this doesn’t make it less annoying for me and it once again made me realize that streaming is nice for discovery, but not to depend on for my music.
There’s high-end streaming services devoted entirely on DSD, It is called PrimeSeat
https://primeseat.net/en/
Quick correction - almost none of the Masters on Tidal (which are almost exclusively high resolution remasters and / or new high resolution releases over the past 5 years or so) would be “upsampled” Redbook.
There have been one or two exceptions noted (e.g., one of the original Madonna albums was said to have been digitally recorded at 44/14 (!), so no analog “master” could be available) , but the vast majority of older releases are remasters based on the original analog tape, digitized at 24/96 or 24/192, or original digital recordings, generally remastered but presented at the original resolution (e.g., 24/44 or 24/48).
“Upsampling” Redbook material caused a big stink a few years back and is considered a big no-no. The studios have since very assiduously renounced it where it’s been detected, to the extent they will pull releases completely or issue a corrected version.
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If this have already happened even with some exceptions there will be more; one needs to dig down and find out which albums are really originally mastered in analogue and not up-sampled Redbook. Up-Sampled Redbook is considered cheating especially for digital downloads but since I don’t have pay extra subscription fee for listening to Tidal Master, they can do whatever they like.
Who really care about CDs these days? Streaming and digital downloads have already surpass the shrinking sale of CDs. Moreover users need to invest a new external MQA DAC just to decode back. What a hassle! Just subscribe to Tidal Hi-Fi and you get Tidal Master at no additional charge then use the Tidal app and decode back.
Don’t you think it’s that simple?
I expect there is still a large group of people who do wish to own CD’s and once you have an MQA DAC you can get the Full Decode, but I take your point on streaming too. This and downloads are the future and a partial software MQA De Code maybe enough for most people.
I welcome this though and hope it spreads because as I am involved in hosting Live Music I know artists need something to sell at gigs and fans want to buy at gigs and they want to buy the music. This is a critical revenue stream for artists at all levels. Also People want something to play on the way home in the car etc.
You can rip an MQA CD like any other and still play it in Roon/Sooloos etc with or without De Codeing.
So the market is, as always more complicated than the headlines may auggest.
I do agree the are still of numbers of die heart fan who still cling on CDs but none are willing to invest in a new format, not even to mention about getting a new MQA DAC.
[quote=“Chrislayeruk, post:1530, topic:8204”]
I welcome this though and hope it spreads because as I am involved in hosting Live Music I know artists need something to sell at gigs and fans want to buy at gigs and they want to buy the music. This is a critical revenue stream for artists at all levels. Also People want something to play on the way home in the car etc.[/quote]
Revenue for records sales are based on the contents of the music which they sell not the format, if the artists can produce albums with a great content that can sell in millions it makes the artists, the fans and of course the music companies very happy indeed 
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Don’t think it should be forgotten that a bit perfect rip of a CD should also be capable of being software decoded. At least for the first stage when this happens. Not sure of the number of people that play CD’s and how many rip them for playback.
I know this, I want to buy MQA CD’s from artists we host because it’s the de facto format and I can Rip them to Roon.
I want the Studio Sound. Great content is a given…