Once the Tidal Masters are unfolded in Roon or in the Tidal app, the lossless versions sound great, and sometimes better that non-MQA HiRes versions.
I have listen extensively to albums in local MQA, Tidal Master, local non-MQA HiRes and Qobuz HiRes formats referenced against a CD rip. The Tidal Master version sounds identical to the streamed Qobuz version.
Yes I find the lossless (PCM) version sound better in terms of sense of openness, vibrancy and feel too, but perhaps because the original PCM hasn’t been processed or otherwise mucked around with, but the MQA versions can sound ok… just not really ideal for immersive listening sessions in my opinion … there is a slight synthetic feel to them… but mobile ear buds etc I can’t hear a difference.
Does the Tidal app unfold MQA if you are then using Chromecast to a NDX2, rather than through the Naim app?
No Chromecast streaming to the Naim system.
Roon to the SonoreUPnP Bridge, and a bit-perfect stream, for all formats, into the Ethernet input of the NDS.
Tidal support is then in Roon, fully integrated with the unfold support for the Tidal Masters.
Also Qobuz support integrated into Roon.
Playback of locally stored MQA files is also true Roon, to ensure that that the unfold lossless version are accessed.
The Tidal support in Roon has always sounded better than the Naim integration in the App, btw.
The only place I have Chromecast is a Chromecast Audio device, as an Roon endpoint, in fact it is a Chromecast in the sGroup for upstairs, with powered speakers, bathroom speakers for full multi room from Roon.
Oh there is a Chromecast into the AV system as a Roon display for a big presentation of the “Now Playing” view, with Artist and Album Artwork images.
Ah, okay thanks. Would Roon on an iMac streaming over a wired network to the NDX2 do the trick then?
It would.
Many Roon users report benefit of hosting the Roon Core on a dedicated device, such as NUC running ROCK, a Nucleus etc.
I do precisely that currently… Roon core just runs in the background… and right now as we are having some decorating/building work done, the iMac is on wifi… and Roon core still works wonderfully. There is no difference between Ethernet or wifi connectivity that I can detect or see
I must run a trial subscription to hear if Tidal is better via Roon then, and try this MQA malarkey.
Well Roon will do the first oversample decode (unfold)… it’s not bad… but it does depend what you are feeding the RAAT carrying MQA into…
I think you get better results without MQA … but sure give it a try.
I don’t necesaarily disagree that if it sounds ok then fine.
MQA is a lossy technology though, but most users here will be well aware that it is quite different technology to MP3 encoding, and primarily concerns better than CD quality encoding for hi-res audio.
Apple’s lossy AAC 256 kbps encodes from their store are pretty good and better than equivalent MP3 bitrates I find, some approach CD quality. They are still lossy.
We could make the same arguments above camera or video formats - the latter generally being lossy on the consumer level due to the huge size of non-lossy video.
I have both Tidal and Qobuz, Qobuz the longest. I buy a fair bit of content, generally hi-res only, consequently I’d rather have FLAC/ALAC/WAV etc from Qobuz rather than MQA for purchases which my installed equipment does not fully support.
That said my Qobuz subscription is old, no longer available with a legacy pricing which I like though limited to SD. Hence I’ll audition in SD in Qobuz, and buy in hi-res if I like something enough.
My Tidal subscription allows use of the MQA formats and Roon does 1st unfold, so some things will sound better than Qobuz in SD but it’s all a bit hit or miss and as you said at the start ultimately down to sound quality. We know we cannot be certain of the provenance of many albums, especially if remastered so ultimately fro streaming I’ll listen to whichever sounds best.
For many of us our hearing is unlikely to be what it was several decades earlier, and I think it’s increasingly difficult for many to tell the difference between competing formats or different lossless encodes. I guess by buying hi-res I’m hedging my bets a bit, but bizarrely for Qobuz as I get Sublime discounts hi-res is also generally much cheaper than CD quality which they do not discount - I’ve pointed this out to them as many titles are unavailable in hi-res, but I’m not spending £15 for CD quality when I can get the CD for £3 from Amazon.
I’d rather have FLAC/ALAC/WAV etc from Qobuz rather than MQA for purchases which my installed equipment does not fully support.
I did buy 3 or 4 MQA (‘Hi-res’) albums when I first purchased an MQA enabled DAC in order to check sound quality vs standard hi-res downloads of the same albums I had already purchased from Qobuz or HD Tracks. This was in my pre-Roon days and so I was not in a position to make use of Roons 1st MQA unfold.
I couldn’t hear a substantial difference on my MQA DAC between the formats and so for similar reason to those you have outlined, all of my subsequent hi-res download purchases have been from Qobus.
I am happy to listen to MQA Masters on Tidal these days (I have Roon for my non MQA enabled DACs). Some MQA content can sound very good indeed, but I have no hi-res equivalents to compare. From a sound quality perspective I have no reason to believe that MQA offers any advantages over hi-res equivalents on Qobuz.
When I have more time and space must put my Oppo UDP 205 back in the system - just read somewhere that mConnect can send it MQA from Tidal which it will decode.
I discovered much the same, running the Roon Core on a MacBook Pro I’m often too lazy to plug it in. It works fine over WiFi and still sounds pretty good.
I have an iPad and iPhone both with 512G storage…so I can download.
512G storage…so I can download.
Should be sufficient then! I was not sure how big the internal storage in iPhone and iPad is these days.
(I like your new profile picture )
There is a lesson to be learned that says never ever buy any downloads in anything but standard WAV, ALAC, FLAC, MP3 or AAC.
If you have been around for a while you may remember all the odd formats you got from the download stores 15 years ago. As far as I know only Apple iTunes provided free upgrades to standard AAC when the music industry allowed them to drop DRM. I had files bought all over the place that became unplayable as their stores disappeared or the supporting software stopped being supported.
MQA is a solution looking for a problem that no longer exist and has all those old problems built-in for the very same reasons they were used back then in the old dark ages.
If MQA referred to their format as being optimally compressed to suit mobile applications and application where storage or data is limited but retaining as much of the original as possible to suit the music enthusiast, most people wouldn’t have an issue I suspect… it’s the apparent hood winking that grates…
Exactly. Very well put Sir
…MQA is a solution looking for a problem that no longer exist and has all those old problems built-in for the very same reasons they were used back then in the old dark ages…
My feelings exactly. Good idea at the time perhaps bar the licensing issues, but for the vast majority bandwidth these days is more than acceptable.
I appreciate there will be small pockets where this is not the case, but I guess if that’s so you have to go for what you can manage for live streaming, but equally even with only 1-2 Mbps you could always purchase hi-res if available and play it locally, even if it took a little while to initially download.
Well this is curious. We had said the Mu-so Qb V1 would need a Chromecast receiver to work with my Atom aside from Airplay? My Atom remote now recognizes the Qb and plays it! I thought the V1 wouldn’t. Previously the multi-room didn’t do anything. I reset the Atom though and now…voilà…