I do wish someone would be more specific about this. In the 10 months I’ve been streaming I’ve added 400+ albums from Qobuz to my collection and a mere 18 from Tidal i.e. the latter were the ones I could not see on Qobuz.
I keep hearing from magazines and posters about these gaps in the Qobuz catalogue. What are they? Specific genres? Specific artists?
In the end it’s most likely pretty random as it depends on whether they can secure a contract with a particular rights holder, and of course the rights themselves are also sold occasionally between different holders. The only way to be sure is to look up music that is very important to someone.
From the top of my head, Sonic Youth’s catalog before 1990 is missing, which is a significant part of their output and includes their probably best album, Daydream Nation. In Techno, there is one album by Jeff Mills out of ~60 that were released.
Some people might not even know who the mentioned artists are, but to other people it’s as if Mozart was missing from the classical catalog. (And e.g. Daydream Nation was indicted by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Recording Registry, so it’s not just any old album)
What makes you think MQA will sound better?
Yeah, this is what I suspected. It’s written up as “significant” gaps as though entire genres are missing but what it really means is odd gaps here and there.
Here’s my small Tidal collection of things not currently in Qobuz. It’s effectively random.
Well yeah, but if the 18 albums were your favorite band, it would be significant to you
The last time I carried out a comprehensive check of the availability in Qobuz of albums sourced from Tidal in my Roon music library, I got the following results:
Around 550 (Tidal sourced) albums in my Roon music library, of which just over 90 were not available from Qobuz. I’m not logged into Qobuz at the moment, but I will get back to you with some specific examples.
What I can say right now is that none of the missing albums are in the genres of ‘RAP’, ‘Hip Hop’ or ‘House’ which anecdotally Tidal is said to favour. I don’t believe that I own or posess in my music library a single album that would be categorized in any of these genres.
This is really about the concept that a device is inadequate if it does not provide someone’s perception of full functionality. It’s the hi-fi magazine thing about x being “better” than y because x has a richer feature set or a more up to date or future proofed feature set. Important for people who like bells and whistles and meters and so on. Much less important than what it actually sounds like.
Having heard MQA I have heard one album which was stunning and a whole load which were downright odd. Having them compared the stunner to a Qobuz download of same we realised the latter at least matched it. It’s proprietary so it’ll be going the way of DVD-A and SACD/DSD. If you have built your collection around such obviously problematic things, which, let’s face it, were obviously problematic from the start, then more fool you really. Pay more attention.
Look forward to it and I mean that genuinely. I’ve a fair bit of hip hop etc. and we subscribe to Tidal and Qobuzso I’m fascinated to learn what I might have missed.
Just realised my 3 month Tidal trial ended yesterday. Happy to continue even though my Chord DAC won’t do MQA simply because of the sub set of albums posted and the 16 year old loves Tidal on his Mu-So QB and his iPhone. The Qobuz app has long since been deleted as it’s some kind of errant hell child.
Good point, and certainly applicable in my case! However, if only 18 albums were missing, and Qobuz sounds better on your system then purchasing the 18 missing albums would be an option, assuming they were available for purchase.
Of the 90+ albums in my Roon Music Library that are not available from Qobuz, there are a relatively large number of albums that I play very regularly, although not necessarily by bands or artists I would classify as my ‘favourites’.
I faced a similar dilemma many years ago when I switched from Spotify to Tidal, but on that occasion ‘sound quality’ won, and I went ahead with the switch. I find that there is very little (if any) real sound quality difference between Qobuz and Tidal on my systems, so I have no incentive to move to Qobuz.
A bit strange assertion. Why you believe MQA will sound better?
If you google a bit, you will definitely find cases when people claim that mqa sounds worse than, say, CD, Qobuz, etc. I bet some claim the same even in this thread.
The master record does not equal the sound quality, i.e. because there are know cases i.e. when MQA version has signs of lossy pre-processing. Other words, sometimes master is not exactly master because was provided not by label, but publisher(who sell copies from master).
Already been said multiple times and most recently by me. MQA is proprietary so not something which has a long term future. Sound wise it is somewhere between okay and downright odd. It’s not something I would hang my hat on or be battering manufacturers for omitting.
Manufacturers want you to hear music at its best. If they’re omitting specific formats then take the hint. It means they’re not convinced and the people selling it are not convincing.
Many products will hang their hats on being fully featured. That’s not the same as good.
I think it’s been mentioned already that there is no “unfold” for MQA.
Sure, and if it’s a favorite one might already have them. I am fine with Qobuz and if anything’s missing that I really want I can buy it. But it always depends on the individual case, you can be more or less lucky.
No, been confirmed many times - no MQA on Naim streamers, not even first unfold unless you go through something external like Roon.
The mentioned What Hifi article is easy to find and it’s not a surprise if someone comes away with the wrong impression if they relied on this article.
Hello Connor–this is the reason I moved away from Naim three of years ago. I had bought an ND555 and was pretty happy, but MQA/Tidal Masters sounded like the missing piece for my ears for my system to sound like real music. I purchased a mid level MQA dac and compared to the music I was getting with the ND555. Lets just say that it was enough for me to go all in on MQA. I bought a Meridian Ultra Dac, which does the full job and that was the missing piece for me. Sold the mid level MQA dac, and the ND555 and have never looked back. There was no question that it sounded much much better. If Naim would have given me the indication that they were working on making MQA work with the ND555, I would have stayed. But they were clearly on the fence and I doubt they will incorporate it unless they see their market share go down. There are almost 400,000 albums/cuts in MQA, and now all 3 major Record Labels have released lots of their catalog in MQA. Each week, we see new things and old things in MQA. Its unfortunate that Naim is in this position, but “it is what it is”–as Bill Belicheck says. There are others on the forum who have gone MQA. Lots of folks are happy with the Naim sound.
At the end of the day MQA is a lossy format and Naim is about playing lossless format recordings excellently.
I don’t understand why anyone would want MQA, which is just a proprietary format pushed by a profit-seeking business, where the business model is charging a licence fee for its particular version of distortion altering the original recording, like they actually knew the electronics used for that particular recording all those years ago.
I switched from Tidal to Qobuz when it became available in the US. It does meet my needs and the HiRes files sound fantastic! I also have approximately 2000 CD’s or HiRes downloads on a NAS that I access as well on occasion. If an album is important to me and can not find it on Qobuz I would download it or purchase a CD.
Qobuz also is less expensive then TIDAL with their monthly subscription and additional savings if you buy a 12 month pre-paid subscription. Lots of reasons to like Qobus for my streaming needs.
…and I have no interest in MQA and quite happy that Naim is not spending money or allocating development resources to add to the product line. In the end the price of the gear would only increase for something I do not want or need. Selfish I know but that is my view and works well for me.
JMHO - YMMV
I do get confused by some of the rhetoric. MQA gets lambasted as it’s lossy, and its promoters are apparently charlatans just after a quick buck. But Roon charges hundreds for a glorified app that gives you no access to music you don’t own or stream through another paid for subscription yet is claimed to be the ultimate solution by some.
I’ve never heard a song via its MQA version, so have no idea if it’s better, worse or the same. But I’ve used Roon and it’s an app that has no merit in costing more than your average few quid. I have parking apps that provide more value, and they were free.
Why the constant attack on MQA? If I saw the same approach to Roon I might understand.
There are plenty of people who don’t like Roon, and plenty who think it’s brilliant. You can choose to use it, or use other, cheaper hardware and software to store, manage, process and serve your music connection. Your subjective opinion of it is only yours.
Much the same with MQA, you can pay for a Tidal sub and buy MQA compatible hardware if you think it’s worth it, or you can get a lossless 24 bit Qobuz sub instead and save a bit of cash.
Thank you Bailyhill, my point exactly. You bought the best streamer Naim have to offer and have sold it for a meridian ultra dac and played MQA through it and it sounds better. I have nothing against Naim but frustrates me when our streamers could sound so much better streaming MQA, but it’s just down to a money problem.
