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Thread: Tidal now streaming MQA!

  1. #21
    Join Date: Oct 2016

    Location: West Lothian

    Posts: 88
    I'm Adam.

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    I was very lucky this Christmas as my dad gave my wife and I decent sum of money for a present (he doesn't normally do this, but he found out at the beginning of 2016 that he has cancer )

    Anyway, I have replaced my Sonos connect with a Bluesound Node 2 and I put it into my hifi yesterday.

    I have also decided to switch to Tidal hifi from Spotify premium and this morning I have been listening to some of the MQA albums and they sound great!

    So far I have listened to Hunting High and Low by A-ha and I am now listening to Parachutes by Coldplay.

    The MQA stamp is coming up in the Bluesound app and my Rega DAC-R is showing a 96khz signal.

    I am very happy

  2. #22
    Join Date: Oct 2008

    Location: Glasgowshire

    Posts: 9,656
    I'm Gary.

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    Sorry to hear about your Dad Adam, cant be easy mate.

    MQA...yeah, just started listening a couple of days ago, cN tell the difference even though my Dac isn't MQA equipped.
    Finding more and more albums in 24 bit, great stuff.

    X&Y is on there too.
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  3. #23
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    I now count 403 MQA albums, so they are building it up.

    There is no way on this planet that the difference between MQA and standard CD resolution is anywhere near as marked as say the lift in SQ from Spotify's Ogg Vorbis 320KBps and standard TIDAL CD res.

    On an Intel I5-2500K 3.3GHz CPU, playing standard CD res averages about 10% CPU utilisation. MQA averages around 20%. So as you might expect, it doesn't actually require that much in the way of decoding power to decode the MQA stream. I am skeptical that a hardware implementation would be any better. That'll just be running software on a more specialised platform anyway, probably using quite cheap parts to do the decoding as expensive ones just won't be necessary.

    In my second system, which I am basing my evaluation on, and which probably performs to your average level system, I find it impossible to tell the difference between MQA and CD res streams. I'm only saying that now as my hearing was back this morning in my right ear with a vengeance, after suffering from an ear infection.

    I was skeptical when I read about MQA. What it doesn't seem to have at all is that sort of DSD smoothness that SACD and DSD players seem to exhibit. No bad thing IMHO.

    Will do some main system evaluation later.

  4. #24
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    BTW the track I was using was I Get Wild / Wild Gravity from the Talking Heads album Speaking In Tongues. This album always sounded great on direct metal mastered vinyl.

    If anyone reckons they hear a marked difference, say on which album and track please. I be curious to try it.

  5. #25
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    Just done the main system test with an SPL meter, the same track, and my wife and myself.

    We hear no difference between MQA and CD. Both versions output the same SPL level.

    So, do you trust this man? Do you detect a lack of sincerity? Is it possible that he knows full well that your probably not going to hear one iota of difference?



    Technically, compressing everything over 22K into 8 bits might actually produce a worse result. Try listening to ordinary music with 8 bit resolution. JRiver will let you do that. It is hopelessly poor. On that basis, junking that information rather than pretending to represent it might well be the better idea, as standard CD res does. But TBH you aren't going to hear it anyway, at least not those frequencies directly. Talk to your local bat for an accurate opinion.

  6. #26
    Join Date: Jun 2010

    Location: London, UK

    Posts: 391

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    Just playing the same track via Explorer2 DX and it appears its 88.2/96kHz as the blue light and one white light is lit. The blue light means its MQA or when white standard 44.1/48khz if not other white lights are lit. It sounds very good and compared to the standard Hifi version the bass is firmer although it is very close.

    I have the remnants of a cold so hearing is great at the moment though.
    Paul.

  7. #27
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: gone

    Posts: 11,519
    I'm gone.

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    Quote Originally Posted by User211 View Post
    Just done the main system test with an SPL meter, the same track, and my wife and myself.

    We hear no difference between MQA and CD. Both versions output the same SPL level.
    This from another forum ..."The detail, openess and 3D space are in a different league, in fact include any hifi term you care to, yet the musicality is still there, in fact more emotional. "

    Expectation bias, or is Justin now deaf and about to declare he is happy with Spotify Premium?

    Different albums, though - maybe it's variable?

    I'm still signed up with Tidal but I can't be arsed to see if there are any MQAed classical albums.
    .

  8. #28
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

    Posts: 99,005
    I'm Grant.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jandl100 View Post
    This from another forum ..."The detail, openess and 3D space are in a different league, in fact include any hifi term you care to, yet the musicality is still there, in fact more emotional. "

    Expectation bias, or is Justin now deaf and about to declare he is happy with Spotify Premium?

    Different albums, though - maybe it's variable?

    I'm still signed up with Tidal but I can't be arsed to see if there are any MQAed classical albums.
    is there any plans for tidal to develop their own "Connect" system Jerry that youve heard. I might have been interested if they had it but without it its not gonna work well for me.
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  9. #29
    Join Date: Dec 2016

    Location: Buckinghamshire

    Posts: 18
    I'm James.

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    Have to say I think the Tidal MQA albums that I have heard so far sound fantastic and are instantly (okay within 5 secs) recognisable as better. More realism, more engaging sound, more holographic, but most importantly just a more musical presentation. Tidal has won me over.

    Sent from my XT1580 using Tapatalk

  10. #30
    Join Date: Jan 2013

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 6,843
    I'm Justin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jandl100 View Post
    This from another forum ..."The detail, openess and 3D space are in a different league, in fact include any hifi term you care to, yet the musicality is still there, in fact more emotional. "

    Expectation bias, or is Justin now deaf and about to declare he is happy with Spotify Premium?

    Different albums, though - maybe it's variable?

    I'm still signed up with Tidal but I can't be arsed to see if there are any MQAed classical albums.
    It is so easy to convince yourself you can hear a difference. Yet go back and forth over and over again on the same track. And then do it again.

    I will personally bet anyone £500 that they are unable to reliably detect which is which with better than 80% accuracy over a sample set of 10 tracks under a well controlled blind test using my pretty capable system.

    Anyone up for it? I didn't think so LOL.

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