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MQA arrives on Tidal

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muzzer said:
Are you setting your dac to exclusive mode and selecting your dac in the settings option in the Tidal Mac app/
All the master albums I have tried so far are showing 24/96 from my MBP into Chord Mojo apart from one .
Should be no need to mess with audio midi settings.
I don't think I'm getting the full MQA as I don't think the Mojo is capable but most sound very good probably due to remastering in 24/96.
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I've not used my Mac for playing music before, so I don't really know what I'm doing. I selected my MDAC in the Tidal app, and selected Master as quality. At first everything seemed to be 24bit 44.1 kHz so I reset via AudioMidi app and it offered me 96kHz and it now my MDAC now says everything is 24/96 - how do I set "exclusive" mode? This may be my problem, though long term I wouldn't want to use my laptop to play music.
 
Just got an email back from Auralic, the Aries puts out a digital signal with the MQA part still encoded, ready to be decoded by an MQA-capable DAC.

And I just placed an order for a Mytek Brooklyn.

Interesting times ahead!
 
vln said:
Still waiting for feedback from Auralic, as soon as I have the green light I'll order a Mytek Brooklyn from Thomann on a sale or return basis, to see what this is all about.
Click to expand...
Great DAC - I got mine a month ago and it's been one of the bigger changes I've made to my system over the years. Sounds simply stunning.
 
JTC said:
Great DAC - I got mine a month ago and it's been one of the bigger changes I've made to my system over the years. Sounds simply stunning.
Click to expand...

+1. I got one almost a year ago now and I enjoy it a lot.
(Adding a good external linear PSU SQ gets even better IMO).
 
So bit of a numpty question here, I'm new to the finer pints of streaming, so be gentle!

My system is:-

PC (Win10 - tidal app) > Creative X-Fi HD (for USB to SPDIF) > K2 DAC in JVC1010.

How do I get the X-Fi to output the stream at the native settings. The only options I seem to have are to set 16/44, 24/44, 16/48, 24/48 etc.
I may be stuffed anyway as the K2 only supports up to 24/48 but I would at least like to know how to do it.

Is the X-Fi the weak link and if so what's the best USB > SPDIF convertor for reasonable money? Is the M2 Tech Hiface the default choice?
 
Purite Audio said:
With a USB to s/pdif converter, if your DAC has USB input.
Keith
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Hi Keith

Thanks. It does have a USB in but looking at the usual websites ( maplin , Amazon) i can't find a solution that is just a cable with the right plug on each end. A lot of what I've found seems to bundled up with a cheap PC dac and I already have one of those . Please can you point me to a link?

I have been listening to some of the tidal HD via the headphone o/p of my LT and It does sound pretty good, although as others have said I don't want to use this as part of my music set up . I'm usually slaving over it, and having it across the other side of the room won't really work, and I'm loathed to buy another one.

Thanks IA
 
johnhunt said:
Hi Keith

Thanks. It does have a USB in but looking at the usual websites ( maplin , Amazon) i can't find a solution that is just a cable with the right plug on each end. A lot of what I've found seems to bundled up with a cheap PC dac and I already have one of those . Please can you point me to a link?

I have been listening to some of the tidal HD via the headphone o/p of my LT and It does sound pretty good, although as others have said I don't want to use this as part of my music set up . I'm usually slaving over it, and having it across the other side of the room won't really work, and I'm loathed to buy another one.

Thanks IA
Click to expand...

Hi John,
I think it should be a USB A type to B type USB cable you are looking for:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-CROMO-USB-Type-Cable/dp/B007PKPV9S/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1483703749&sr=8-16&keywords=usb%2Ba-%2Bb%2Busb&th=1
As an alternative to being wired to the hifi or buying a separate laptop - With a little jiggery pokery you should be able to 'cast' audio from your laptop to a Chromecast Audio. You can then use a mini 3.5mm toslink to full size toslink optical cable to connect digital out from the CCA to your dac.
Best wishes
David
 
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Although it must clearly be possible to do the full MQA unpacking in software, I'm not sure whether the MQA powers-that-be will permit that. Audirvana have announced MQA integration into the next version of their player, but they say

"Audirvana Plus 3 (available end of January 2017) integrates the MQA Core Decoder, enabling to get the full MQA quality with MQA devices, including the renderer only ones. Users who don’t have a MQA capable device will also benefit from the 2x sample rate of MQA streams thanks to the decoder in Audirvana Plus 3 that performs the unfolding."

In other word, you need an MQA enabled DAC or streamer to get "full MQA quality", whatever that is; software will only get you some of the way.

http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/our-partners/audirvana-partner-page
 
Just as food, meds and just about everything else (apart from Tellurium ... ) is declaring ingredients, Streaming services should be obliged to display bit rate of streams.

As is, I currently don't know what is CD quality on Tidal and what not.

Similarly on Spotify, no idea what is below their 'Premium' Quality.

I guess that's an issue for another day but an additional format is not going to make it easier.
 
Some interesting info from this Sound on Sound article :-

"The sample rate of an MQA file is always based on that of its source material, so original material at 88.2, 176.4 or 352.8 kHz would be encoded as a 44.1kHz MQA file, whereas material starting out with 96, 192 or 384 kHz sample rates would be encoded as an MQA file at 48kHz. (Maintaining the base sample rate for each format is essential, as any sample-rate conversion processes would compromise the system’s time-domain performance.)"


This therefore may explain the various 24/44.1 and 24/48 labelling of the format via Audivarna when playing MQA files from Tidal (after having 'favourited' them in Tidal desktop app).

Whole article here:-
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality
 
Tubehead said:
Hi John,
I think it should be a USB A type to B type USB cable you are looking for:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-CROMO-USB-Type-Cable/dp/B007PKPV9S/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1483703749&sr=8-16&keywords=usb%2Ba-%2Bb%2Busb&th=1
As an alternative to being wired to the hifi or buying a separate laptop - With a little jiggery pokery you should be able to 'cast' audio from your laptop to a Chromecast Audio. You can then use a mini 3.5mm toslink to full size toslink optical cable to connect digital out from the CCA to your dac.
Best wishes
David
Click to expand...

Thanks , I shall try and pick one up over w/e
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
AndyU said:
Although it must clearly be possible to do the full MQA unpacking in software, I'm not sure whether the MQA powers-that-be will permit that. Audirvana have announced MQA integration into the next version of their player, but they say

"Audirvana Plus 3 (available end of January 2017) integrates the MQA Core Decoder, enabling to get the full MQA quality with MQA devices, including the renderer only ones. Users who don’t have a MQA capable device will also benefit from the 2x sample rate of MQA streams thanks to the decoder in Audirvana Plus 3 that performs the unfolding."

In other word, you need an MQA enabled DAC or streamer to get "full MQA quality", whatever that is; software will only get you some of the way.

http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/our-partners/audirvana-partner-page
Click to expand...

Is this the case now with the Tidal desktop app. I have only seen posts of people getting 24/96 from the 24/48 stream. Is anybody getting 24/192 without an MQA DAC?
 
drummerman said:
Just as food, meds and just about everything else (apart from Tellurium ... ) is declaring ingredients, Streaming services should be obliged to display bit rate of streams.

As is, I currently don't know what is CD quality on Tidal and what not.

Similarly on Spotify, no idea what is below their 'Premium' Quality.

I guess that's an issue for another day but an additional format is not going to make it easier.
Click to expand...

I agree that would be handy. Been trying to find out myself.
The way I think you can check is - you can check Tidal's rate if you use Audirvana or Amarra on your desktop.
EG. Play Flaming Lips "Yoshimi etc" master in Audivarna - and it reports stream as FLAC 24/48. Interestingly the metadata on the track listing still says 44.1 - but I imagine thats generic info.
Not sure about Spotify though.
 
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