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24.0.54.56
I'm already a consumer of their 1411 tier. This should be fun.
--eNjoY YouRseLf!.....
Follow Ups:
Don't believe anybody has posted this link yet. It's an hour long YouTube video from RMAF 15 ...Computer Audiophile's Chris Connaker, talks to Bob Stuart, innovator behind MQA (Master Quality Authenticated), and Pal Bratelund, Strategic Partnership Manager at TIDAL.
Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best ... Ragnar Lothbrok
Edits: 12/06/15 12/06/15 12/06/15
If it is Audible, does it sound better? -- I understand more bits coming down the Pipe, but whether it results in better Sound Quality seems to be in doubt for what I have been reading.
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Cut-Throat
people here have opinions about sound that are based on reading, not listening.
Both Listening and then Reading to understand why?
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Cut-Throat
/
Got a link that shows the improvement in wave-form?
TIA
JE
"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." - William James
I spoke to Pål Bråtelund at Tidal and while this deal is in the works, it has not been finalized. The current goal is to deliver Tidal/MQA at the same price as Tidal HiFi ($19.99/mo.). A great goal, imo.
A few points worth noting - if you are a Tidal user but not interested in moving to MQA, all Tidal/MQA files will be delivered in CD-quality to your existing hardware (even if they are hi-res). The MQA process also includes a filter that reportedly corrects for timing artifacts introduced by the original A/D process.
For more info on MQA, I'd recommend John Atkinson's article:
Michael Lavorgna
Editor, AudioStream.com
Thanks for some REAL info, Michael!
Michael
The big question to ask Pål and MQA people is how to implemented MQA on existing equipment.
If manufacturers allow, can streaming devices like Auralic have a firmware update ? Meaning you do not have to purchase a new DAC.
How about the huge Squeezebox (Touch) community ? Can a decoder be implemened in LMS ( Logitech Media Server) or SB Touch, or SW like JRiver, Foobar, etc. Is there any license issues then can cause problems upgrading existing players / streamers / SW ? Or does it have have to be a MQA enabled DAC ? ( I doubt).
If you could get some answers from Pål, or MAQ, that would be very helpfull, and clear things up.
My understanding is any hardware solution is required to have a physical indication when an MQA file is in use. One example being the Mytek Brooklyn DAC that has an MQA indicator included in the front panel display.
Master Quality *Authenticated*
I'm certain that CES will offer answers to most questions.
Michael Lavorgna
Editor, AudioStream.com
I read the John Atkinson article you linked to. Thanks.
Will this MQA "next big thing" be the wet blanket of doom for DSD enthusiasts?
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Re. DSD, I wouldn't know.
To my mind, people who enjoy DSD, I do, will continue to enjoy it. I seriously doubt anyone ever thought that DSD would be anything more than a very small niche.
Michael Lavorgna
Editor, AudioStream.com
Yes, I know. I was responding to Abe's question re. DSD.
Michael Lavorgna
Editor, AudioStream.com
MQA do not support DSD. Only PCM.
MQA do not support DSD. Only PCM.Yes, I know. I was speculating that if MQA takes off and becomes popular I wonder if the DSD "fad" will fade. SACD was all the rage a decade ago and now look at it. I'm wondering if we can see a parallel with MQA / DSD. Audiophiles are a fickle bunch after all.
Edits: 12/09/15
It is a step, but one that could be avoided.
Why is everything moving so slow?
Michael
Still no answer to how the MQA over Tidal will get decoded. As far as I am concerned unless Tidal includes a MQA decoder with there streaming service or an inexpensive app to decode MQA they will be dead in the water. No one seems to have an answer to this make or break question. If Tidal or Meridian thinks I am going to get rid of my Master 7 dac and buy another dac they are dreaming
Alan
Decoding will be performed by hardware or software. I've read that Roon is working with MQA, which makes perfect sense considering their past relationship, but details on the software-side are scare at present.
Michael Lavorgna
Editor, AudioStream.com
.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Thanks
Alan
Thanks for posting the article. I'm toying with the idea of subscribing to Tidal, and possibly playing around with Roon. The article was great, until I got to this part:
Tidal recently appointed a new CEO, the company's third in eight months....
Did the first two CEOs conclude that this company was just 'smoke and mirrors' and in trouble, so they left? Were they fired? This should raise some concerns.
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I've been a subscriber since before It became trendy to trash. It's not like you're funding a startup. If you like it, keep it. If not, move on. Free trials and such what.
--eNjoY YouRseLf!.....
and I'm still enjoying the service.
Went from MOG to BEATS to Apple music and got off then it was BEATS.
If QOBUZ dies I still have TIDAL and ClassicalOnlineHD.
Plus Deexer Elite in reserve.
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There is only a monthly commitment to Tidal. So if they go under you really don't lose anything. I have Tidal and Classicsonline and love both of them
Alan
If Tidal were to fail the most you could lose is $20.00. Roon, on the other hand, requires an annual commitment.
Sure hope they include gapless play in their new web and Android/iOS apps since they haven't gotten around to it yet in lossless mode.
have noticed no Gapless Playback issues yet.
Am I missing something?
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Try the Paganini Rhapsody by Noriko Ogawa (BIS). It starts on track 7. I understand that some implementations may handle the gapless problem, but both the iOS app and the web implementation still seem to have problems although it's better than before. TIDAL has acknowledged the problem and says they are working on it, but I've never seen an announcement that claims a general fix.
ClassicsOnlineHD which throws up all over itself with every transition.
Amarra for TIDAL and TIDAL do MUCH better in most of the transitions but not perfect in all.
Guess sometime ya just gotta spring for the CD! ;-)
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How do you have your ClassicsOnlineHD configured? If you have it set for adaptive mode it should handle gapless perfectly (it does for me). It works with my 10M slowski connection (phone company) and my 85M cable connection. If you don't have adaptive set it will not play gapless in my experience.
I played the Rachmaninoff on both Tidal and ClassicsonlineHD.LL
I have Amarra for Tidal and it played perfectly all the way through
I have Classicsonline set to adaptive mode and there were still many places that it screwed up. I used to have an Auralic Aries and Tidal also played gapless over the Aries. Lucily the gapless problem on classics does not effect a lot of classical music. I really love both these streaming services and will look forward to the upcoming HiRez Tidal streaming service as long as we don't have to spend a lot of money for a MQA decoder
Alan
Thanks for the Noriko suggestion. Im using a Tidal audiophile plugin for Kodi and you cant tell its streaming. I wont say its as good as the local disk but with recent enhancements in the victrola Tidal is wonderful!!!!
Good luck!
TIDAL and Amarra is not PERFECT but only a click/hesitation or two between some of the MANY tracks.
I have a 12-15Mbps U-Verse connection but the next track doesn't start loading until it is WAY to late in the ClassicsOnlineHD player.
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This is quite interesting. Last night I couldn't get the ClassicsOnlineHD to work at all with my iPOD app, but it worked perfectly with this recording on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A and the Android app (same time frame; same network and account). Most of the time the opposite is true: the iOS outperforms the Android.
I think one of the problems ClassicsOnlineHD has over Tidal is that there are not any third-party implementations of the client software like there is with Tidal.
will report back.
This one (above) even drives QOBUZ crazy and they do pretty good on loading and playing gapless multiple tracks (total of 73).
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The one question I have will the Tidal streaming service have a player with the MQA decoder or will we be forced to buy new hardware such as a new dac or an outboard decoder? It seems to me if Tidal forces users to buy new gear they will meet some strong resistance. If they include a decoder in there app they will have a winner
Alan
Auralic has strongly hinted that a firmware update via internet will allow MQA/Tidal streaming to one's DAC of choice. Therefore, it appears that the "MQA fix" comes in the device/software used to feed the DAC.
much like the software 'player' currently required to stream TIDAL or QOBUZ on a MAC or Windows machine.
MQA FAQ:
"How do I play MQA?"
"MQA can be decoded to give authentic studio-quality sound with either hardware or software. We'll be announcing partners very soon."
Link below:
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Hope you are correct
Alan
supporting a technology that requires their customers to purchase HARDWARE in order to enjoy the SQ improvement, including all of the work to encode the files for distribution.
Hard enough to get people to sign up for a months free trial.
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Hard enough to get people to sign up for a months free trial.
Yup, you're looking at him! ;-)
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TIDAL should sound pretty good!
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Great point. I'm not yet a Tidal subscriber but basic "CD quality" streaming will likely be just fine by me. If they require extra hardware for MQA I'm probably not interested.
To be honest, I haven't read up on MQA. Do we really -need- it? ;-)
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MQA is a trick to squeeze hires in as stream with more or less the same size as 16/44.
Obvious for streaming services this saves a lot of bandwidth.
Likewise it saves us some bandwidth when listening to streaming services.
But I wonder if one can call it lossless highres.
The Well Tempered Computer
I sat back and laughed, this is what Fraunhofer did with MP3.
I blame the infrastructure of the last mile Internet for this nonsense.
Companies like Comcast capping bandwidth, this sounds like a gimmick,
Maybe Google will save us and the open source guys can come up with something. That's where my money is going.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
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I read over the John Atkinson article rather quickly but if I were to summarize, I do not see this as 'unrecoverable' MP3 lossy compression.
It seems to have it's modern day similarities to the old companding techniques where you compress on transmit and decompress on the receive end.
That's an over simplification for sure but I think the end result is SUPPOSED TO BE reconstruction w/o loss.
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Making this the obvious proprietary format grab that it is. Remember dial-up? Who worries about streaming HD films now?
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
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Make it $10 and I will sign up,
I already pay $20 for YouTube, google music, Google drive and Deezer Elite.
Not to mention the 100s of thousands of federal reserve notes getting to explore where I am now in terms of the $40,000 I invested in what seems to be an ok system.
And it is not that high.
These guys can blabber all they want,
Depends if it is a real upgrade in sound. I am one of those guys who doesn't believe Hi-Rez is any better than Redbook, just more expensive
Alan
I'm with you about 95% on your Hi-Rez vs Redbook comment. I can hear a slight improvement doing an apples to apples comparison from the same master but the majority of the sonic quality is already there in redbook IF the material was well recorded and mastered. In this case, the 'jump' to hi-rez on playback is not very significant.
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when searching through the ClassicsOnlineHD catalog I can usually tell the better recorded, perhaps more recently recorded but not always, albums that are available for streaming in 'HD' which can be anything from 24 bit 44.1 KHz (big deal) and up.
That said, I hear little of no difference when streaming the same album from ClassicsOnlineHD in 'hi rez' or from QOBUZ in Lossless FLAC. But the catalogs are different so I subscribe to both for the time being.
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Actually 24/44.1 is a good step up from 16/44.1 and worthwhile. That bit depth 'jump' is more significant than the sample rate 'jump' of 24/44.1 to 24/96.
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"Once you get over 20 (bits) you're basically storing Brownian Motion"
Link below:
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