Really?
Then you can hear a difference between every single MQA track and the PCM version of the same recording?
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Too right!!! 
You seriously telling us you can’t hear the difference between a PCM file and an MQA file being played back in ‘legacy’ mode? Wow.
You are the first person I have heard suggest that… I don’t believe even MQA themselves suggest they would sound the same…
Yes, however I suspect most MQ files would appear as 44.1/24 or 48/24 when in their ‘legacy’ mode playback on a system that doesn’t recognise MQA encodings.
In fact I would go so far as to say that I greatly prefer the relatively benign softening and dumming down effect of MP3 to the highly unpleasant abrasiveness of MQA in ‘legacy’ playback mode (i.e. if played back as simple LPCM).
All the Tidal MQAs I’ve played so far on my NDX have displayed as 16/44, at least when I’ve bothered to check.
How are you feeding the MQA files to your NDX… the Naim app only selects the PCM variants… or it did when I had Tidal. I can’t remember that the masters option was available within the Naim app.
If you use Roon for example you can usually choose PCM or MQA encodings on Tidal.
Interestingly on Qobuz many tracks that appear as MQA on Tidal appear as 44.1/24, 48/24 or 96/24 PCM on Qobuz
This was using the NDX with native Tidal. It does include MQA albums that I’ve identified as such in the Tidal app, and saved, so that I can find and play them on the Naim.
Ok, but most albums are in 44.1/16 PCM and some additionally in MQA on Tidal.
There were a few tracks that were not in PCM at all and only MQA… but from memory very much a minority… on Roon you saw both encoding variants for the vast majority that included MQA and could choose either when searching for an album. The Naim app I believe only retrieves PCM or AAC from Tidal.
I’m assuming that if you choose the MQA version by identifying it in the Tidal app, you would get that same version when you play it via the Naim app. When you save an album as a favourite, you choose which version you want to save, and as I understand it, an MQA file will still play on non-MQA devices.
No, I don’t believe that is the case, as Naim have no MQA decode capability, that would mean inferior playback compared to PCM.
Roon makes this more transparent and you can see the ‘encoding versions’ of the album.
Roon also makes easy to compare first decode/unfold MQA playback with 44.1/16 PCM to see what you prefer.
The reason I switched to Qobuz is because Tidal limit their PCM versions to 44.1/16 where as Qobuz goes to 192/24 if available.
OK, so Tidal must automatically select a different version (maybe also a completely different master?) if it sees that you have non-MQA kit.
I’m not at home right now, but I might have another play with this at some stage.
it’s because you said that if someone can’t hear differences between mqa and pcm, the reason is that his system lacks resolution. It’s what i understood and probably Jim.
A couple of points:
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JimDog will no doubt reply for himself, but from memory and previous posts (although I may be wrong) I believe that he tested MQA using the first MQA unfold available in Roon.
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'The difference between a PCM file and an MQA file (if we ignore the ‘legacy’ mode reference) can be interpreted in a number of ways: ‘CD Quality’ MQA vs 16bit/44PCM, ‘hi-res’ MQA Master vs 16bit/44,1 PCM or 'hi-res- MQA Master vs equivalent PCM hi-res file.
I have personally never heard a 16bit/44.1 MQA album, and I have no interest in them. I find on both my main systems (Linn Klimax DS//1 (with 1st Roon unfold) or Sonore microRendu/Mytek Brooklyn+ (with full hardware MQA unfold) that ‘hi-res’ MQA Tidal Masters are mostly preferable to 16bit/44.1 Tidal equivalents (where mastering is the same). I find that there is little difference between ‘hi-res’ albums I listen to on Tidal and those hi-res albums (with the same master) that I have purchased from Qobuz, possibly with a very slight leaning towards the Qobuz offerings.
Unlike you, I have seen quite a few posts on both the Roon Community forum and this Naim Community forum from people who find it difficult to distinguish between Tidam MQA Masters and equivalent hi-res offerings streamed from Qobuz. I think that quite a few of them would be more than a little put out at the suggestion that their hi-fi systems were better suited to MP3 replay.
I haven’t really listened to MQA offerings in ‘legacy’ playback mode in my systems. I might give this a go over the next couple of days to determine whether or not I can hear the offending digital artefacts or abrasiveness that quite a few people report hearing.
IIRC, MQA claim that MQA encoding makes the same recording sound better than PCM, even on equipment that has no MQA playback facility at all.
I don’t know know whether the Naim app is programmed to only show non-MQA files.
As I understand it the Naim app is only designed to show non-MQA variants of a track/LP you search for on the Naim app.
But I have saved hundreds of Tidal Masters tracks and LPs to my Tidal favourites thru a Mosaic app, when I had the MQA first unfold.
I’d like to find out for sure whether or not the Naim app cleverly takes account of this and chooses to play a PCM file instead, as Chris asks above.
Perhaps @Stevesky can confirm this either way…?
You claim that the Naim app only selects the PCM variants.
so how am I supposed to use the Naim app to compare a PCM file and an MQA file being played back in ‘legacy’ mode?
They are wrong though.
You had the perfect opportunity when you have the DCS Bridge. 
When I had the dCS Network Bridge I did compare MQA first unfolded files vs PCM.
I also compared Qobuz to Tidal, both CD quality and hi res/MQA.
And I compared the MQA first unfold via the dCS Mosaic app with the same recording played thru the Naim app (although I didn’t check whether this latter was an MQA or non-MQA version of the track).
The results were surprising to me - the different formats all sounded very good, but there was no significant difference between them.
My conclusion from this was that hi res and MQA first unfold don’t make much difference on my system.
But Guinnless, how would having a dCS Network Bridge help me compare the sound of the same recording as an MQA file and as a PCM file both played on a 272 using the Naim app.
According to Simon the Naim app won’t play MQA files.
That’s why I asked him that question.
Even HMack, who is an MQA fan and has the full unfold and a much more expensive hifi than me, says the differences between MQA and PCM are subtle. And that in the end he prefers non MQA hi res to MQA hir res.
For the record, I did once hear a significant difference between an MQA first unfold and a non MQA file on the dCS app - that was with a Nirvana track (maybe ‘Endless Nameless’).
Yes, in that case the MQA was worse - the treatment had tried to ‘clean up’ the thrashy noisy guitar sounds, and as the whole track is mainly feedback and noise it sounded worse.
Just weighing in on this subject. I have the Meridain Ultra Dac and revealing Ribbon Speakers. I do find that there is lots of Pop 44/MQA that does not excite me. I would not use that as a benchmark for what MQA can do. I find that generally, the best material is 352/MQA, This of course means that the master was of that resolution, which MQA does preserve according to the display on my DAC. The sound was good enough with the Meridain Ultra Dac and MQA, that I traded off a ND555 as many of you know. It was better in MQA, and I could not justify having all that money tied up in the ND555 that did not do MQA. The differences were quite worth it to me. It cost a lot of money to make this change as Naim in the USA does not sell well in the used market. The ND555 did nothing that the Meridian did not equal or exceed. In addition, the Meridian Apodizing filter makes a difference and all my regular CD’s sound better than they every did with the ND555. I had ripped them with the Unity Core and played them back thru the Ultra.
Trust your ears on MQA. Unless you understand all the tech details, its hard to realize what it can do. And do listen to something other than 44.1!
And of course, GIGO, if the recoding techniques are not top notch with repect to microphone placement, and choise and all the other things that go into a great recording, we cannot expect MQA or any upsampling to fix that.
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