Seems when I click on the star in Roon - where is shows the streaming file type, I used to get 88.1 and 96k sample rates when playing content that appeared as ‘master’ when viewed from the tidal app.
Well, for the last few months, it seems that applications dropped support for master or MQA (DJ Pro, Tidal app), and I assumed that MQA had finally been put to rest when Tidal announced its new “max” verbiage which just seems to be a much less convoluted form of hish-res streaming than MQA. I think they mentioned that they would be rolling ‘max’ out slowly.
So, I had accepted that Tidal would be Redbook in the interim. And in checking the star in Roon, it seems like everything I streaming from Tidal is “Redbook” MQA (or what i mean is its 44.1k). Always 44.1k.
However, on the Roon Facebook group… I just learned that everyone there seems to have no problem streaming at higher than Redbook bitrates. They say that MQA is alive and “magic” for them. They told me how to enable MQA, but it was already enabled…
However, to make it even more confusing - I went to try to find some content - any content - from Tidal that would be designated as ‘master’ on Tidal. Since there is no way to see what is ‘Master’ vs Redbook on Roon, I open up the Tidal app, and find that ‘Master’ seems to not exist anymore at all… I verified that my subscription is HIfi plus… so I should get high res… but albums that used to appear with the orange 'Master" box under them are no longer showing the master designation.
This all seems so convoluted… so I guess we are not free from the MQA chains. So can someone explain:
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Does MQA still exist and is Tidal still streaming it?
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Is ‘Max’ or some other, much less convoluted, streaming format exist on tidal now?
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Is Tidal streaming both either “Master” or "Max’ depending on which format the content is in, or have they switched to just one now or hopefully in the future?
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Why am I paying an extra $111/year for a HiFi plus subscription when I’m only getting HiFi speeds (HifiMinus?)
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Why does it have to be so complicated. Why can’t I just push play and Roon will deliver the highest quality using software intelligence?
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Do I need some kind of “Masters” degree in MQA architecture to figure all this out?
I work in IT, I have a masters degree in Nursing, and I build Tube amplifiers. I feel like I should be smart enough to use Roon, but roon always get the best of me in its unintuitive nature and unpredictability.
