Ah Nipper…As in His Master’s Voice…
Two stages to getting MQA out to your ears…first unfold from 44.1 or 48 to 88.2 or 96. Rendering by DAC up to 192kbps.
Not wasting any more money on Tidal.
Maybe when Roon and mqa are working, but I am tired of seeing rap listed as the top music and pretending to be music in Tidal.
I have a related question . In December , my dCS Vivaldi will be updated for MQA playback . I have Roon running on a QNAP server . Can I continue to access Tidal through Roon and get the full MQA benefit by simply disabling DSP and volume leveling or will I need to access Tidal in a different way ? I am dumb on these things so be gentle .
If your DAC does full MQA unfold, it will play MQA as long as you send bit-perfect data (purple star in Roon). But if your DAC only does the second unfold, then you can’t use Roon for MQA, at least not now (it’s being worked on).
Thanks Magnus , much appreciated . I think I’ve got it - - a Tidal , MQA file , accessed through Roon , will be seen by an MQA , hardware-enabled DAC as bit-perfect and will be "unfolded " as long as that DAC does not require an initial external unfold . Gees , that’s a long sentence .
An MQA DAC will unfold it. A renderer won’t. Is that shorter?
‘Rendering’ = up sampling?
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Thanks , Chris . I spent a good portion of my working life as a consultant . If you clearly and concisely stated something there would be no need for the client to invite you back to explain what the hell you said . Old habits die hard .
My understanding is that rendering is the further unfold beyond the first unfold and has to do with the DAC optimisation as well.
How’s that for a sentence, and I could be wrong… Chris
Now, that is a catelogue question. The relativly small selection of MQA files highlighted in the app hardly does justice to the growing nummer of back catelogue albums available in MQA quality. Imagine what will happen when Universal and Sony will jump on the MQA bandwagon …
The selection of genres available is already quite broad. It won’t get any broader when the other labels are ready to go. Tidal will always push a certain genre because it is in the interest of its owner to do so and because overall it works for Tidal. If that is seen as a reason not to go with a streaming provider then there are alternatives that will push their classical/jazz or soft rock or pop credentials which I am sure will suit some and repel others.