No worries, thank you for sharing.
It’s rather annoying that I can get the full fat Tidal MAX 24/192 MQA and FLAC experience on my ancient DAC V1 but not on my NDX2…
The MQA bit I understand but on the new functionality I feel the same. Kind of feel left behind here.
maybe i misunderstood, but you can’t have full MQA with the Naim DAC VI neither.
Naim charges a premium price on their products, I expected it to be on the bleeding hedge of supporting the new high res on streaming services before anyone else.
But that’s me, I only hope not to wait one year for an update, because is just strange on a premium brand…
I’m not sure Naim is the right brand for anyone who wants to be first to get their hands on the next new thing, whether it’s MQA, DSD, Tidal Connect, Roon, or any other new service or audio format. They have always been selective about what new features they put resources into supporting, and they do so in their own good time. If you can’t wait you may need to look elsewhere.
I can’t imagine the wait will be much longer but who knows since there’s no comment from Naim. And if you use roon into Naim, it’s also a waiting game. They said they’re working on it so hopefully soon. But kind of disappointing when see other companies have already released updates months ago. My worry is if I do switch to Tidal once upgrades are in place, how many albums will still be in MQA only format. Hopefully most is hires or cd quality in Max setting.
However this time it is a case of Tidal moving to a standard they already support and there were months lead-up to this.
As I commented above I contacted Naim support and got this:
It did not give the feel that this is imminent.
Most assuredly - I am playing Tidal Max on my DAC V1. Another community member had mentioned that it is the Tidal app on my PC that’s “unwrapping” the MQA as transport and then it is simply sent to the DAC V1, which can handle up to 24bit 192khz. I am glad that MQA can play on my DAC V1 but disappointingly, not on the NDX2.
You may be getting the so-called ‘first unfold’ of MQA on your PC, but you’ll only get full MQA if you use an MQA DAC, which the V1 is not. Likely a moot point as Tidal move to regular lossless high res as used by Qobuz.
As Chrissu responded, you can’t get full MQA. Enjoy however. Sometimes 16/44 sound better vs hires. And MQA is more and more a dead format.
Tidal Max is now live and supported on Lindemann products on both Android and iOS. I thought it was an update needed on hardware too but seems to be app update only.
Why’s this taking so long to resolve. Seems poor for a premium audio brand.
Hi All, after some PTO from this forum, back in this topic.
I’m disappointed as well that Tidal Max doesn’t work on the NDX2 yet. Stupid thing is that I found out after I moved over all my playlists and favourites from Qobuz to Tidal and cancelled my Qobuz subscription. For months I just assumed I never saw the ‘Max’ indicator in the Tidal app or desktop because I mostly play old music from the 60s and 70s. Duh…
Playing around with the settings last night, it seems there are some tracks that do play on ‘Max | Flac’ via Chromecast from de desktop app (Mac). Switching to Tidal Connect, the indicator turns to ‘High’ in blue (Max is yellow-ish), And it does so consistently going back and forth. Although not my taste in music, an example in the screenshot. This track sounds pretty decent and I think it sounds better via Chromecast / Max but I’m not 100% sure. Weird thing is, I’ve only found a few tracks like this. Completely random.
This is some HiRes playlist on Tidal btw.
I have been preparing to do the exact same thing. Started moving things to Tidal, you know, cause by end of 2023 we’d be enjoying Max. But here we are…
There could possibly be a very good reason for Naim holding back on this, but communication has sadly not improved over the last months. I miss the days when Claire was active on the forum.
The Nova PE has just been revealed. Does it support Tidal Max 192/24?
I just updated my Naim app and there’s no firmware update for the NDX2. What’s happening?
Roon just released their Max update in the early release program. I’m giving Hifi Plus a 30 day trial and currently listening on my Naim Uniti Atom HE. Not sure if I’ll end up keeping it at this point. The older catalog still has a lot of MQA only releases and see some new stuff on at CD quality vs Qobuz 48/24 bit stuff. That part’s not that big of deal but was hoping they transferred over more of their catalog to standard Flac than MQA only. So for I haven’t found any files that are in both hires and above CD level MQA. Most new stuff is regular CD quality or hires without MQA at all, so seems they are phasing it out.
One thing I never liked about Tidal was that the resolution wasn’t displayed anywhere. I could never tell if I was receiving the bitrate I was supposed to be getting. i believe that Qobuz is more clear with this info and as such, I’ll be adding a devive to my NDS that receives Qobuz.
Wonder if this may by the reason for Naim holding back.
If you want to test Tidal Max on your Naim streamers, I recommend that you download the Jplay app for ios. A very good app that streams UPnP with integration to both Tidal and Cobuz. Jplay structures all the meta information in a good way, better than Naim’s own app and shows more albums from Qobuz than Naim’s app. As for Tidal max, it’s unfortunately mostly MQA files and I’ve gone back to the HiFi subscription, which I think sounds very good.