Tidal now seems to have left the “Master quality” and replaced it with “Max” see the picture from my ios app. When I tried to stream via Tidal Connect, the stream was switched over to “High”, which should correspond to 16/44.1.
Via the naim app, it is also not possible to get a higher resolution than 16/44.1, as it is only possible to select “Hifi” as the highest quality, which corresponds to today’s “High”
Have managed to stream Max quality wired from my iphone to an older Chord Mojo.
Does anyone know if there is any limitation in the Tidal connect protocol? It would also be great if Naim could upgrade the app to accept higher resolution than 16/44.1 from Tidal
I live in Sweden by the way.
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No it doesn’t work unfortunately, well at least not on the first few albums I tried. Perhaps I was unlucky and they’re all MQA. There doesn’t seem to be a way to tell whether you’re getting FLAC or not.
Two problems though - the naim app doesn’t offer max as a quality option, so you can’t access the content that way.
And Tidal Connect to an NDX2 does seem to downgrade to 16/44.1 (the Tidal app changes to displaying High so it looks like Tidal knows the Connected device is not max capable).
Suspect we’ll be seeing an app update and a firmware revision soon.
Interesting. In the Netherlands I still have the choice of Normal, High, HiFi.
Audirvana devs mentioned this yesterday. I guess Tidal is a bit rushing this out leaving others behind…
“At the time we speak, Tidal didn’t gave us the information of the MAX setting in there API. I will ask them when they have an ETA for it since now it’s live on their app.
Note that MQA is still available, it’s just they pull the FLAC version first on their app now instead of the MQA one.”
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Disappointing from Tidal.
There’s a whole ecosystem of supported devices from various manufacturers. All of which left in the lurch it seems.
I’m sure naim will provide some info on likely implementation timescales on naim devices (and which devices) soon.
If Tidal are still serving MQA that will be an issue as naim devices don’t support those, and I think from previous posts it’s “hard coded” into Tidal servers to send FLAC 16/44.1 to naim user agents wasn’t it? Hopefully not too hard coded and actually based on renderer capabilities…
This is what they state on their web page:
What file types are included in Max quality?
You’re getting the best quality version of any song on TIDAL by selecting Max quality. The source file you receive depends on the format(s) delivered to us by the artist, label, or distributor. The hierarchy of availability is HiRes FLAC, then MQA (Master Quality Authenticated), then FLAC, then AAC (compressed audio), meaning that, if we don’t have the file available in HiRes FLAC, the source file will be the MQA version and so on.
I asked Tidal support and here is their answer: “ Currently HiRes FLAC is only available streaming directly from iOS, Android, Desktop or Web. TIDAL Connect, Sonos, and Chromecast support are coming later in 2023. We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback. We’ll be sure your request gets in the right hands. Your feedback helps us improve and we appreciate your thoughts! ”
I just saw MAX become available in the Tidal app (Netherlands)
This is going to be annoying! And quite shocking that Tidal Connect is unable to support the new tier. Bit of a half arsed rollout.
Via RaspberryPi (Tidal desktop) we will be able to get hires on office SU, whilst in the lounge we’ll have to slum it 
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Indeed, available now a few hours later. See the app was recently updated, so guess that was it.
Interesting choice to re-use the ‘High’ for a different quality. Used to be 320Kbps, is now lossless at 44.1/16 (formerly HiFi). Not confusing at all…
Airplay seems to say MAX - can anyone confirm what bitrate iOS is sending to Naim?
AirPlay is limited to CD quality (well technically AirPlay 2 supports 24bit/48kHz) but no hires.
An Apple thing.
I would like to test and listen tidal max vs qobuz hires on NDX2.
Will it be possible to get tidal max native on the NDX2 or may be NDX?
Or is that a question which cannot be answered.
You won’t see Tidal Max support on 1st gen streamers, but there’s no doubt Naim will want to offer it on the Mk2 range once Tidal makes it available.
Mk2 is which range?
Thanks for your input.
Sorry, I meant ND5XS2, NDX2, ND555. Also Atom, Star, Nova and 222.
Okay thanks ChrisSU.
Is there a hardware limitation that there will be only tidal max support on the “Mk2 range” ?
Thanks for your reply.
It’s the same hardware limitation that prevents Qobuz being supported on the legacy streamers.
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Hmm just found a review of the Tidal Max functionality. Apparently, right now, Tidal silently decides which hi res format to stream. If FLAC exists it is preferred, otherwise you still get MQA. And there is no way to see in the app which version you will be getting or even search for tracks with hi res FLAC.
Guess I will be sticking to Tidal Hifi a little longer until the dust settles.
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