Tidal removes all mqa, podcasts, and 360
Answered
As of July 24, according to their latest newsletter.
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Official comment
In conversations with TIDAL, as posted on their Knowledge base here, it appears they will automatically be substituting the Masters Quality file with a Hi-Res file when selected regardless of using TIDAL Connect or the BluOS App; https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/25876825185425-Upcoming-Changes-to-Audio-Formats
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If this is true, what will we be able to get through the BluOS app for true high quality audio
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Thank God this lossy junk is finally laid to rest. Switching to flac is the best thing that ever happened to Tidal.
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More here, also mentioned in Wiim and Roon forums.
https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/25876825185425-Upcoming-Changes-to-Audio-Formats
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What does that mean to us?
Do we get only CD Quality or HighRes?
Does Bluesound have to make any changes in their firmware? If so, are they willing to do so?
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MQA will live on and with new codecs. HDTracks and Lenbrook have announced that a new streaming service coming at a future date will offer both MQA and FLAC.
I for one am pleased since MQA, while lossy, reduced file size without any perceptible loss in audio quality, despite what the nay-sayers complain about. There are new codecs in the MQA stable that will do the same for Bluetooth transmission which at the moment is very lossy.
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HDTracks represents an insignificant percentage of the audio market and people have transitioned from buying digital audio tracks to unlimited streaming. Tidal was the only reason there was any adoption of MQA. The company behind MQA was absolutely despicable and a detriment to the audio world and I am happy they went out of business. They used to flat out lie and claim their codecs were lossless, then claimed distortion free in the audible range, and of course they would not allow any independent testing and the format and encoding tools were proprietary. Youtube's Goldensound video blogger actually did testing and dispelled all these lies and made some waves in the audio community.
There is also hardly any reason to download lossy files these days with almost unlimited storage space and unlimited bandwidth. There was an argument for that 10-15 years ago but not today. So even if you want to buy music off of HDtracks, you can download uncompressed versions for audio fidelity or if you want to save space you can get an mp3 version which is going to be smaller than MQA anyway.
Sad to see MQA in its post-bankruptcy acquired state once again pushing closed format models. Bluetooth simply doesn't have the bandwidth for lossless above CD quality audio. And they always employ adaptive bandwidth which I believe is going to be a part of their new codecs. This means that the end user will never know if they are getting lossless original audio. I only hope that the hardware vendors don't adopt their proprietary codecs and MQA dies for their final time.
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It's clear you have your own opinions which differ from mine.
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It's clear you have your own opinions which differ from mine.
Yes, which part did you like about MQA? That they were proprietary vs open source? The fact that they lied about being lossless? Their refusal for outside testing and verification of their claims?
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So what you are saying is we will get MAX quality automatically without doing anything, right.
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So what you are saying is we will get MAX quality automatically without doing anything, right.
This is what TIDAL is telling us you will get come July 24th without anyone doing anything. Yes.
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Thank you for the clarification.
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OK, we have now clarified that MQA is being replaced by the best available resolution.
But what resolution is delivered if there is no MQA version, i.e. only high-res or CD quality? In this case, we currently only get CD quality. Doesn't Bluesound have to do something to ensure that high-res is delivered?
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According to what Tony said, the hi-res or MAX layers will automatically replace the equivalent M QA layer by TIDAL
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@Invenio
To be precise, MQA is lossless up to 24KHz with 18bit depth, it's lossy relying on remaining 6bit on ultra sonic side only, absolutely enough for its tiny and leveled contents. Anyway it's correct say it's not bit perfect but not true saying it's totally lossy.
44.1KHz 16bit MQA are also identical to equivalent 44.1KHz 16bit flac, apart a flag saying to compatible dac to use custom upsampling and antialias filtering.
MQA suffered from bad presentation, royalties and consequential bad press.
Said this, I will not cry for it's depart...0 -
It absolutely is not lossless. Go watch GoldenSound's youtube video on this where he clearly shows you the distortion resulting from MQA encoding (and that was from 16bit audio files). There is no such thing as a "little lossless". It either is or it either isn't. MQA is a lossy format, not a lossless format. Period. Also, as you mention, it is not bitperfect. If you are not bitperfect, you inherently can't be lossless.
Wikipedia has a nice summary of the criticisms of the format.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated#Negative
Completely agree that I hope they get rid of the standard.
Lenbrook acquired the company (and they also own Bluesound) so I'm interested in seeing how they proceed. I hope Bluesound will not be a champion of MQA in it's previous incarnation of proprietary formats, royalty fees, and false advertisement.
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@Soul Man
The question is: "Will Bluos app, play hi-res Flacs in true hi-res, or will it in CD quality as today"?
I can understand that with tidal connect, nothing should change or penalize but I would like a fully functional Bluos app also.
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It already does up to 24b/192khz FLAC. Well, not the BluOS app directly as it's a controller app and not a player, but the hardware it controls (like the Node) plays up to 24b/192khz.
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@Invenio
This starts to be a little off topic and I agree that MQA creators did unclear and miracolistic statements...
Anyway, Goldsound exemple was for a master originally produced 44.1KHz 24bit. To encode a original 44.1KHz 16bit flac to MQA, adds just a flag activating custom antialias filter if available, that can be different from the common ones present on dac's and doesn't affect the contents.
You could obviously disagree but a MQA 48KHz 24bit, derived from a 96KHz 24bit flac, can definitely be lossless in the audible part, since less significant 6bits are carrying nothing but noise and dynamics of any system practically never reach those remaining 18bits. Bit perfection is a thing, contents carried out in a lossless way can be another, usually they are related but it's not to be said in absolute way.
As written before, I like Tidal will drop MQA. For the hi-res files, there are no more reason to save bandwidth, with actual networks. For MQA derived from cd quality masters, the only reason to drop them, are royalties.
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Can you reference how MQA can be bitperfect as you claim? I have never seen any official documentation release about the encoding process (as it's proprietary). I'm not sure how you could get lossless audio even in the "audible range" and then have higher range lossy. That means you could encode a 16/44khz PCM into MQA and re-encode it back to PCM and have it bitperfect. I'm pretty sure that can't happen due to the nature of MQA lossy encoding. A quick and dirty easy confirmation is the file size would also be comparable to FLAC, which it isn't as MQA encoded files are much smaller than than their comparative FLAC alternatives (even at 16/44khz) which tells me that it's a lossy encoding process and it would be impossible to have a lossless 16b/44khz encode with MQA.
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@Invenio
It already does up to 24b/192khz FLAC. Well, not the BluOS app directly as it's a controller app and not a player, but the hardware it controls (like the Node) plays up to 24b/192khz.
I know and I'm using Tidal connect but I would like a fully featured Bluos app, it definitely is mainly a player also and it should take as exemple the way WiiM streamer app does all such things
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@Invenio
Can you reference how MQA can be bitperfect as you claim? I have never seen any official documentation release about the encoding process (as it's proprietary).
I never wrote it's bit perfect.
In case of MQA 44.1KHz 16bit encoding from a 44.1KHz 16bit flac file, no change happens on file contents and just a header flag is added to trigger compatible dac. File size and pcm contents don't change but, since the presence of this header, can't be considered bit perfect, just lossless since the core information didn't change.
MQA doesn't have a custom pcm encoding, it use the normal one. On a 48KHz 24bit MQA from a 96KHz 24bit master, the pcm data up to 24KHz are taken and stored unchanged on the 18 more significant bits and this doesn't affects the result, because on the 6 dropped less significant bits there is always just noise and hardly any hifi system can overall reach such dynamic.
Those 6 bits are used to lossy encode the ultrasonic remaining part of the original master, part that is very flat and poor of contents, so 6 bit are considered enough.
After all these eventually used or not used processes, they can or can't reduce the original file size, MQA use a custom antialias filtering system.
There are also MQA files in hi-res that simply don't use "folding", just add the header for alternative antialias if available.
All this to say that MQA it's never bit perfect, since at least it adds an header but it could be totally or partially lossless.
I could suggest an article on "Audioreview 426",it's in Italian but one of the more precise about this "dying" system (not so bad as depicted)... 😎
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I'm sorry. I don't understand how you can be lossless and NOT bitperfect. This is a contradiction in terms. You really can't even claim that "certain parts" are either. I can say mp3 is lossless, as long as the audio is complete silence. That's of course ridiculous. If ANY of the audio is lost and can't be perfectly reconstructed then the format is neither bitperfect nor lossless.
MQA initially made the claim that they were lossless. This was one of their embarrassing blunders and they subsequently removed this claim and there has been no official word from them since that the format is lossless in any way.
I think we may be saying a similar thing in different ways. Regardless, my recommendation to anybody is to keep as far away as possible of the MQA label. We'll see if Lenbrook can instill some integrity into one of the most dishonest brands in the audio world.
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I think it's just a semantic matter...
Make two files from a single studio pcm wav 44.1KHz 16bit, one MQA and the other flac standard (to be precise, even MQA uses flac format). If you analyze them from absolute bit content point of view, they will differ due to the presence of MQA header so they can't be claimed bit per bit identical. Anyway the pcm samples content of that kind of MQA and the standard flac are the same, so you can say that the carried pcm samples are bit per bit identical or even bit perfect from the content point of view.
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That's not my understanding of it from GoldenSounds analysis and other critics of the format. If that was the case they could claim that their audio is lossless, and they don't (well not since they were caught lying about that very fact).
Regardless, this is an interesting academic conversation. In terms of the utility of the format I just don't see it. If you want the highest quality audio possible, you are going to go with a true lossless format. If you want the least expensive cost, you are certainly not going to go with a proprietary format that charges licensing fees at each step of the way. And if you are primarily concerned about file size, then there are other lossy audio options that have much smaller file sizes.
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