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Since I signed up for Tidal only one album has been added to the Masters. I counted 514 at startup, and it is now 515.
Am I not seeing more because I'm in the trial period? Or is this it so far?
And one annoying thing about the Tidal app on a mac, every time you go back to the album list it goes back to the top. It doesn't hold its place.
And when is Audioquest going to release the software upgrade to the DF for MQA? They are at CanJam today in NYC, and am hoping they'll show something. I may even go since it is just a subway ride away, but my opinion of audio shows isn't very high. Usually just a lot of overpriced equipment that only sounds so-so, being sold by guys (always guys) that talk down to you. No thanks.
Follow Ups:
I am seeing some new stuff. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised to see the first four Mott The Hoople LPs and the four Faces albums among the first releases.
And The Doors LPs sound really good. My dac is showing 88 or 96 on the Masters so it is doing the partial unfold.
;-)
It looks like they added 6 Eagles titles today (snore). Welcome to the Hotel California zzzz
These may have already been on the offline list, but they now appear at the top, and there are 522 titles when you go to Albums..Masters..ShowAll.
They really need to have their own list. They tout it as this great thing but then don't tell you how to get at it all.
This is the best all-around list I have found so far. Slim pickings depending on who and what you like, but a little bit for most everyone.
Sony and UMG are talking about a Spring release for their remastered Masters. I have already noticed a lot of "double" Sony albums; I suspect they are space savers for the eventual roll-out.
Now if Audioquest will just release their upgrade of the Dragonfly, we'll be in business.
Jeff
"Decaf is for cowards."
Jack Kevorkian
When I went to the list it starts with "A"
Alan
for the past day or so, it began with "R" but now it begins with "A." Anyway, it is too sparse and cumbersome to be of much use.
I have tried accessing it with my tablet a couple of times. It is clumsy to use.
For now it is not that hard to look through the Tidal Masters list, and mark favorites.
I have learned to use the Tidal player, but it is got it's own set of quirks and bugs. I do not understand why there is no way to tell if a file is a Master, except by finding it in the Masters list or playing it. MQA files should be easily identifiable.
And for those with MQA dacs, be sure to click on that dac's settings, and set the option to bypass interal processing. I think it is allow pass through of MQA.
My buddy has an Explorer 2 and until I showed him, he was doing half the unfolding in Tidal's app.
And I hate how the mac version keeps going back to the top of the Masters list. It makes it really hard to go to an album and sample as you keep going back to start. After going back once from the end of the list I can't be bothered to scroll through it all again, especially since the scrolling isn't smooth.
I'm listening to Fragile/Yes right now, down at the bottom. I have to keep saying that it really sounds good. Whenever I click on something that isn't high res I'm not nearly as satisfied even if I want to hear the music. 16/44 sounds grainy by comparison.
I find it easier just to click stuff in Masters as a favorite. Then when I am done with going through the list that doesn't seem to know whether to use an artists first or last name, I can then look deeper into it. Easy enough to remove from favorites.
I have had mixed results with CD resolution entries. First time I listened to something I thought it sounded worse than my rips or CDs played on my transport. I finally came to the conclusion that it is the quality of the version they have. Some are very good, others not so much.
I don't think they took 62 year old audiophiles into consideration when designing their player.
There is another bug, if you put some albums in the queue, start playing, and add something to the queue, it doesn't add on to the bottom of the list, it plays next. Leaving tracks from what you are listening to, below that entry.
I have a little over two months left on my trial, and then I will decide, but I am leaning towards keeping it. The selection is surprisingly good. I just looked, they have the Blodwyn Pig albums. Most people don't even know they are.
If we were kids listening to Mp3s, it would be awesome. When I started buying albums, I think they were around $4. I was buying at least four records a month, plus a lot of $2 cutouts. And any LPs or "playlists" were copied onto cassettes.
As someone who only got into a computer music source about 18 months ago, I still find buying downloads an unnatural way of owning music. If I were to die, all my albums and CDs would be sold or donated, while the downloads would probably end up deleted.
it's focused on those who like oldies pop & rock. :)
It's focused on Warner's back catalog, but yeah, that's what it is now. They don't have a deep jazz or classical roster either.
But when UMG and Sony get in on it, it may be a whole new ball game.
At some point they're going to have to let us know which albums are MQA and make them easier to locate.
Jeff
"Decaf is for cowards."
Jack Kevorkian
...but yeah, that's what it is now.
Hence my observation.
Nothing of interest to find here. Move along!
as to when the total approaches 0.01% of available content.
I doubt I'll live long enough to ever get to listen to THAT large a percentage of all music ever recorded, so what's your point?
One great recording makes it all worth while (as long as someone else is paying the cost of producing it, of course)
I know record collectors who have 10's of thousands of LPs, who have collected records their who lives and yet they will admit that they've only scratched the surface of what is possible to own and the STILL hang out in record shops!
0.01% of available content indeed!
I won't be constantly investing thousands of dollars to buy a new DAC with the latest trick processor. It would take leveraging quite a bit of my library to make such a move.
and the STILL hang out in record shops!
Such does not require replacing their playback equipment in order to purchase another album.
What I have heard so far is pretty good, albeit only three or four titles I'm interested in. When played side by side with the standard 16/44.1 'HiFi' version this 'Master' version sounds better.
That with a 'multi' thousand dollar, 'multi' PCM1704U-K based 'multi-bit' DAC. ;-)
a software only solution is not a full MQA implementation. If it were, whey then would there be *any* need for an MQA capable DAC? Riddle me that, Batman.
Enjoy your four titles. I'm hard pressed to find any that I would listen to on a regular basis. They've got Iron Butterfly, but not In A Gadda Da Vida . :)
There are 2 enfoldings that happen in MQA. The first is information from 24 to 96khz. The Tidal desktop player unfolds this information. The second folding is everything above 96KHZ. To unfold this you need a dac with MQA decoding. Even though this last folding is basically noise Bob Stuart says it does make an audible difference. I can't tell because the dac I have with MQA (Meridian xplorer2) is inferior to my non MQA dac (Audio-GD Master 7). The master 7 sounds better with MQA files than the Meridian.
Alan
One must replace their DAC in order to hear oldies rock & roll at their best!
There may be NO advantage sound-wise that justifies encoding to higher sampling rates with older recordings.
it's not a question of "higher sample rates". Presumably, Meridian "recaptures" lost timing information in a revolutionary way. :)
or the original encoding system used by the record label?
That WOULD apply to recordings that are being re-masstered from analog tapes and then digitized, I suppose.
Even when they don't know the original ADC they have a general algorithm that takes the most common factors of the original recording equipment and still improves some timing issues
Alan
I think I correctly understand that one must have an MQA enabled DAC in order to experience the full deal.
And I'm not ready to buy another DAC for a piddling amount of content, little of which I listen to.
I just found out the DragonFly I bought to try this out doesn't produce enough power to drive my main system without having all the power supply noise get amplified as well. A high-end external DAC was never on my radar.
So back to vinyl for me too. I'm still going through my sister's 200+ collection that she gave me, many of them mint. It looks like my ex brother in law bought a bunch towards the end of the vinyl days and then lost interest and they sat in these same boxes when they bought their house in 1990 or so. Aja, Joshua Tree, Graceland, Miles of Aisles, Who's Next, to just name a few that were totally mint. They had "theNicePrice" stickers on them from the closeout days.
" And when is Audioquest going to release the software upgrade to the DF for MQA?"
I don't understand this upgrade in the context of listening to files from Tidal Masters. The Tidal player will decode the Master (MQA) file to 24/96 Ks/S. That is also the highest data rate that the Dragonfly will process. It will accept up to 192Ks/S but will downsample to 96Ks/S.
So if you have a Dragonfly and your only source of MQA is Tidal then you are not missing out on anything if the upgrade is delayed.
There is also some mention of voodoo that goes on with the timing within MQA that is embedded in the second or third layers of MQA. That is still missing, not that I'd probably hear a difference. I bought the DF because I knew it could do 24/96 with Tidal doing the first decode. I just want more, more, more...
I'm guessing here, but I'm suspecting that iPhones won't support the unfold of the first layer in the Tidal app if and when that becomes available and you'll need the full decode to happen in the DAC.
I'm listening to Fleetwood Mac/Fleetwood Mac (the one with Rhiannon), an album I used to have but long ago lost. Yet I have 3 copies now of Rumours on LP, and on CD. It comes up as 24/96 on Tidal. Sounds great.
I also don't like that when you go back it does not go back to where you were.
They are slowly adding files. There are some additional albums when you go to a master file and go down to other albums. Some of the other albums are MQA but don't show in the original list. Remember the big change is supposed to come in the spring when Sony and UMG will begin adding MQA files. UMG itself is about a dozen different labels. You need to be patient. After all they are not charging anything extra for streaming these MQA files
Alan
I just found a list on the Hi-res forum, and yes same artists mostly but more titles. It doesn't help that Tidal doesn't show the resolution until you play it.
And hi-res does not always equal quality sound. What is the point of a hi-res version of what sounds like a 78?
What was the point of a cd or sacd of that same album? Some people want it
Alan
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