Honestly… this is all new to me. I learned that MQA wasn’t another way of saying “Master” after reading this thread. Didn’t realize it was a musical origami thing.
Regardless, I have been pretty shocked about the amount of signal tampering being done by all of the components in these digital effects chains. Seems like a simple enough idea to take a 24/192 file streaming from a source on the internet, send it to a receiver and just play it. Not so much.
Roon seems to be the only thing telling you exactly what is happening in the signal chain readout (also new to me as of this thread) and where the wheels are falling off.
It is simple. That’s what Qobuz does. Up until recently, Tidal MQA worked well with Roon. It’s only recently since Tidal decided to ditch MQA that there has been an issue and much confusion. It will soon be resolved with Tidal’s switch to high-res flac files.
For me, I’m only paying $10.99 for Tidal Hi-Fi which plays CD quality 16/44.1. I use Qobuz at $10.83 for HD 24/88.2, 96, 176.4, and 192. I like the lower resolution Tidal files when away from home using cellular data. So, I use mostly Qobuz at home and Tidal away from home. I have the same 1650 files linked on both Tidal and Qobuz as well as Apple Music with a few exceptions.
I too liked the intellectually satisfying result of seeing Hi-Res numbers of 24/192. Until I read an article on audioholics interviewing the CEO of audyssey. He was explaining why they chose 48Khz for upper limit. Summary was: Speakers/headphones can not reach even half of Hi-Res numbers. Human ears have a hard upper limit of 22Khz when we are young—then it gets worse. So, 48Khz doubles human hearing therefore it is more than sufficient.
As I said it was satisfying to see those marketing numbers, 24/192, scroll across my screeen, but physics and math interfere with this pretend reality. Now I am relaxed.
I’m inclined to agree with you. Except…. And fair warning, I’m about to get a little esoteric here…
There is a level of music encoded at the highest rate. It’s music that has been carefully mastered, cared for throughout the years and re-released in the highest available resolution format. I’m just talking about music made before 1985 really.
As such, searching for 24/192 files is akin to searching for “great music”. This isn’t universally true, because even though it is absolutely impossible to find a hi-res version of Eric Clapton “Journeyman”, it is painfully easy to find 24/192 of the Plastic Ono band.
Adele, interestingly, hasn’t released the first three albums in hi-res either.
I have found that the content found at 24/192 is “better” than the content made available at the lower bitrates.
That, and I have heard a few songs enough at hi-res that I’m easily able to distinguish between the full pop Amazon 24/192 and the throttled Tidal version on my HEOS system. “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills and Nash for one. The clarity and separation of Crosby’s voice in the left channel is apparent to me. So much so that after putting it on once, I didn’t hear what I was looking for so I checked the source and found that HEOS had grabbed the Tidal (16/44.1) version instead.
That wasn’t an A/B comparison for me… and it told me that I wasn’t imagining the “placebo” difference. I could tell that there was something wrong.
It’s even more profound on headphones… which have revealed the difference even more starkly.
Granted, that is CD to (essentially) vinyl quality differences, and it SHOULD be audible to a moderately trained ear, but I would expect it to be audible only A/B because without any reference, the CD still sounds pretty damn good. You have to KNOW what the hi-res sounds like in order to hear the difference and look for it.
Another track that just screams to me when I listen at lower res is Tool “Chocolate Chip Trip” off of “Fear Inoculum”. Overloaded with the intensity of the first seven songs, I often shut off the album before the end…. But that track is an Easter egg. It is some of the wildest 2ch imaging I’ve ever heard. It is so transparent, so wide and deep that it absolutely blows your mind. And that includes muggles that come over and really don’t know imaging from pancakes when they arrive.
Tidal throttles nothing. Tidal uses MQA which is compressed from 24/192 to 24/48 and 24/176.4 to 24/44.1. Roon server (or MQA DAC) can decode to 24/96 and 24/88.2. An MQA DAC can render from there back to the full HD resolution.
This is just as likely to be a different mastering as to it being 192/24. I have several albums that are from the same master that are 44.1/16, 96/24 and 192/24 I can’t tell the difference This on a dedicated two channel system. If you compare a different master to another doesn’t matter what res it will sound different and not always better.
Exactly my point. I have found that the content that is encoded at 24/192 is superior sounding… via superior master, better encoding, better source or whatever.
The 24/192 versions are consistently better… even if the resolution isn’t necessarily.
Agreed if you want to get into semantics. The Tidal is throttled…. By HEOS and by Roon currently. When I go usb direct to the app I get full resolution.
Point is, Tidal does not give full possible resolution on HEOS (throttled) which is the takeaway.
Tidal is not throttled by Roon. Tidal uses MQA which is a compressed format unless you let Roon or an MQA DAC decode the MQA file. Then, you need an MQA DAC to render to the original HD resolution. Tidal is in the process of replacing MQA with HD flac.
HEOS doesn’t support MQA or Tidal Max and Roon doesn’t (yet) support Tidal Max - that’s the issue here. No one is doing any “throttling”. Throttling is when your cell plan provider reduces your data speeds because you’ve used too much data.
A better master is better sounding. Whether you get it in 16/44.1 or 24/192 makes no audible difference (except to the people hearing ka-ching selling higher rez tracks for more money, and selling equipment that can handle it).
Better master are consistently better than bad masters, rather unsurprisingly. Specific resolution does not matter if it is at Redbook level or above.
The Roon endpoint will solve your issue. Dedicating an old PC or cheap laptop as Roon hub and connecting it directly to your Marantz via HDMI will work even better. I do that with my Denton AVR-X4400 and am able to use iPad to control Roon endpoint and Denon receiver from my couch. Hub will let you display song info, etc on TV via HDMI from your Marantz, endpoint will not.
For hi-res playback, my Denon (and likely your Marantz as it is made by same company) the HDMI connection enables playing 192/24 from Tidal.
One caveat is that current implementations of Audyssey require down sampling to 48/24 to work its magic. So you either have to play audio in direct mode or live with 48/24.
Lastly, the difference between MQA and FLAC is real, BUT incredibly difficult to hear IF both files are from same master. Tidal appears to be pivoting from MQA to FLAC and Roon will eventually support that. I personally expect that to happen sometime in CY2024, but no one has clear date yet.
Fortunately… there doesn’t have to be a definitive answer here.
And for everyone who posts “you can’t tell the difference” there’s another dude spending $1500 on a power cable. They probably aren’t doing it just for the look of the cable.
I think the most important thing to understand and come to grips with regarding HiFi and audiophelia in general is that we can all hear different stuff.
I completely believe people who wax philosophic about cables, for example. I believe that they can hear a difference between one and the other. I am not positive that would be validated by blind, empirical testing…
…but I’m certainly happy that I can’t hear the difference.
But there is stuff that I can hear, and while it isn’t as obvious and stark as other things I’ve done with the system, I can hear a tangible, noticeable and more importantly desireable difference between the 16/44.1 tracks I’ve listened to and the 24/192 variants.
It’s a big enough gain for me that I have expensed quite a lot of money and effort trying to make that resolution ubiquitous on my systems.
The other thing is, at least about me, is that I listen to music pretty loud. (Please, please save the hearing loss discussion for a different thread.) It is entirely possible that the differences that I hear at 105db are simply not as obvious at 78db. Or even 90db. I’m happily listening to Doobie Brothers right now at an “ambient listening volume” (looks to be about a 65db average max room to room) while tidying up after the holidays and I couldn’t care less what resolution is playing over the HEOS. It sounds “fine” over the in wall speakers throughout the house, and at these low volumes.
But once you start turning it up, it reveals flaws in both your system and the content itself.
I can hear the difference. And… it’s all I care about. I spent years convincing myself I couldn’t… and on the integrated amp and big box store JBL speakers, maybe I couldn’t. As I stepped up the gear, I also stepped up my ability to tell the difference. My phone stage probably cost more than that entire system I ran for years.
Lastly… nobody is selling me high resolution tracks. I stream “borrowed” tracks on a subscription, so nobody is hearing any kachings except the hardware folks.
Regardless of your admonition regarding hearing loss, I will respond to warn other people to never listen to music at 105db. It’s not the hearing loss I warn about, it’s the resulting tinnitus that has driven many people to suicide. I have tinnitus and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which I had a prognosis that I would die by 2012. If I could find a cure for one or the other, I would cure the tinnitus.
I was a drummer and pilot for 50 years. I rarely used hearing protection for either of those activities. I now never listen to music at higher than 70 to 75dB. Wise people will heed my caution.
Irrelevant for Roon since Roon doesn’t support Tidal Max. Until Roon does you would need to use some other streamer (that supports Tidal Max) at the other end of the HDMI connection.
I found with my Marantz that simply using one of the Direct Modes wasn’t enough to turn off/bypass Audyssey. I had to turn off subs in the 2 ch playback settings and use a Direct Mode. That said, I’m not sure how much that matters since any sonic benefit from a 24/192 release probably comes down to how it was mixed/mastered rather than the fact it is 24/192.