I’d wager this is an attempt at fending off a very likely death now that Apple has announced free lossless coming June. #RIPTidal #WhenWillRoonAddAppleMusic #hashtag
Apple has already announced they will start their lossless and hi-res service in June (at least in the US). The lossless service will be at no additional cost, I didn’t quite understand if this included hi-res as well. But they did say that the codec will be ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec, technically similar to FLAC) and that it will include up to 24/192 resolution.
So no MQA on Apple Music, thank god.
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Im downgrading to the new tier. $24 a month for Tidal has been a total rip off so this is great news.
One question: in error I’ve added dozens of MQA albums to my library (Roon picks the MQA version by default when autoplaying so its normally what I add when I decide I like something) what’s going to happen to these albums? Im guessing they’ll show up as unavailable or something and I’ll need to manually trawl through and add the FLAC versions. Worst case they drop off entirely.
For all their conveniences, streaming services are a pain. Especially when one wants to move to another one. I guess thats by design… still there is a strong case for Roon to build in ability to migrate tags/playlists/play counts etc between Qobuz and Tidal.
In an increasing number of instances, no matter what album shows in Tidal after you’ve dropped to the lower tier, it will fundamentally be mqa anyway. You’ll be getting down-sampled mqa thereafter. Read the first 20-25 posts in this thread for background.
Streaming service portability is definitely something more and more users are faced with. So providing a seemless transition / workflow will definitely be very much appreciated.
What unfortunately is still missing is setting a filter/preference in Roon when searching, listening - meaning for example setting preference to Qobuz. This has also been mentioned many times in the past.
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… but no Roon with Apple Music either. In which case, who on this forum who cares about MQA on Apple Music one way or the other?
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I care because it is interesting none of the major platforms going lossless (Apple Music and Spotify) will carry MQA. This is the death knell for MQA.
I was ok with MQA at higher res. It was unclear what actual problem it was solving but ok, fine. However, Tidal is moving to 16/44 MQA, and that is worse than CD-quality. This is the breaking point for me.
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So - are you going to ditch Tidal and move to Qobuz, or are you going to ditch Roon and move to Apple Music or Spotify?
Is that actually known or just speculated?
Two actual reasons:
1- You need some bandwidth for the MQA authentication - this has to come at the expense of audio bandwidth. Some estimates say 13 bits are left for audio. I don’t know if this is accurate, but the fact of the matter is it must be lower bit depth than pure redbook
2- My listening tests comparing 16/44 MQA on Tidal vs 16/44 on Qobuz - in all cases I have found the Tidal version to sound “fuzzier” with compromised transients
Now one could argue that ‘1’ above is compensated by some really fancy psychoacoustic magic. But ‘2’ is really showing me this is just not the case.
Like I said before, “true” MQA with unfolding and whatnot is fine by me. The breaking point for me is 16/44 MQA, and it looks like the Tidal “true 16 bit” versions are gone for good.
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I have had both Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions since they each started hi-res service in the US. I logged off Tidal on Roon about 2 weeks ago and have not missed it at all. I use Soundiiz to keep both libraries as close as possible (in terms of favorites). So bottomline, I don’t miss Tidal at all as of now, and the Soundiiz platform sync allows me to get a precise list of albums that were either not matched or are missing altogether on Qobuz. No I do not plan to ditch Roon or Qobuz.
As for the other services, I get free Apple Music from my cellphone plan, and we have a family Spotify account (my partner listens to Spotify). So I am covered there regardless.
Sorry, I meant is it “known” or “speculated” that TIDAL will be offering 16/44 MQA on their middle tier, the non-HiFi-Plus plan?
It should be noted that they never released that outside Australia as far as I understand. We still don’t have test accounts for it (although they have been requested).
One other to consider is the wrench Apple and Amazon threw into the machine yesterday… I predict this middle tier will not continue past its limited release, regardless of content, the economics are off.
So you think Tidal gonna die?
No. I don’t think so.
I think someone in Australia actually tested this and found that indeed the middle tier was actually the same 16/44 MQA file. I think it would be rather wonky for Tidal to keep both MQA and redbook versions of 16/44 content (which is at least 90% of the content) and segregate the streaming that way.
Absolutely. Given that neither Apple, Spotify, or Amazon will/do use MQA, I think MQA will whither away.
Full disclosure: There are some MQA albums (all “white glove” MQA productions) that sound better than any other release including hi-res (in my opinion). These include many of Aretha Franklin’s albums, Amy Winehouse “Back to Black” and a few others I have discovered. Of the ones I found for purchase (Aretha’s mainly) I have actually purchased the MQA versions (on top of already owning pretty much all other digital versions!).
Unclear. But honestly, once Spotify and Apple Music go lossless, for anyone not using Roon (that is everyone minus 100k), the convenience and ubiquity of those platforms will draw most of the current Tidal and Qobuz users away, in my opinion. Amazon going lossless was not really a good benchmark as the user base and convenience of the platform is much smaller than Apple or Spotify.
I don’t see the viability of either Tidal or Qobuz at that point, to be honest. This will spell big trouble for Roon unless they can get either Apple or Spotify to work with the platform.
Do you have link? I’m curious how the tester did this.
Also, if the file is identical, wouldn’t that defeat the point of the upper tier? If TIDAL was to issue the identical stream on both tiers, I think that would get “leaked” and no one would pay for the highest tier. If they were to offer MQA but somehow “mangle” the MQA part of the stream, then that higher tier may still be viable, but that’s pure speculation, and a pretty horrible allegation as well. I prefer to see some evidence before making such accusations.
Did you run these purchased ones through an audio spectrum analysis? Comparing with non-MQA (if you can have some decent degree of confidence of same master - like same release date).
Is it possible your ‘subjective better’ is actually ‘technically worse’ ?
There has been much speculation like this, over many years - over 4 years of ‘vaporware’ predictions for MQA and similar for Tidal? - yet here we still are.
Out of curiosity, I spent time on Apple Music and Spotify yesterday, and found the interfaces not great. It was a huge relief to return to Roon, though familiarity may be a factor. But as I listen a lot to classical repertoire, Apple, Amazon and Spotify show no advantage in catalogue, and did not make it easy to find content…Tidal and Qobuz were both streets ahead.
I have also grown to appreciate Roon more and more, as more manufacturers sign up, and have really benefitted from being able to stream to an Astell & Kern player, and an Audio Pro Speaker, which we can take outside.
I guess if you have paid for a Hifi system, Roon/Tidal/Qobuz, even MQA may be premium products well worth the price?
Now if Amazon were to do something similar to what it has done with its Prime video service, and support the creation of high quality content, perhaps we would have something better to consider. But as far as I can tell, Amazon and Apple have brought very little to the table for someone who values what Roon etc can offer.
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Ha! I am pretty sure they are NOT the same master, I think the MQA version was remastered more carefully and this is the reason it sounds better rather than anything MQA related.
The most glaring version of this is Amy Winehouse’s “Back To Black”. The CD and hi-res versions, both of which I own, clip everywhere and sound distorted. The Tidal MQA version does not clip as much and sounds better (still not great but noticeably better). There is no doubt that the master is not the same but rather some careful work was done to improve it.
Now, if MQA means better remasterings with less saturation and more dynamic range, I am VERY happy to put my dollahs in Bob Stuart’s pocket. But the vast majority of MQA releases are standard automatic blanket processing of the same master, and it makes zero to negative difference in those cases.
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