Tidal / MQA track specs?
Answered
I'm in a trial period for Tidal and want to understand something.
If I play a FLAC off my NAS the bluesound app with show me tech specs (bit / kHz).
When an MQA is playing it only says MQA and I can't find the actual specs that it's unfolding to. Is this correct? Is it hiding somewhere?
Thanks!
-
Official comment
What you are seeing is correct - MQA is whatever the original master recording was. If the original recording was say 24/48 (as much content from the mid-1980s to early 1990s was), the content is not being upsampled to 24/192 just for the sake of adding the 24/192 badge. Upsampling is technically distorting as you are altering the original by adding information that does not exist.
-
MQA has been perpetually questioned by users and musicians alike, and they have yet to give a straight answer to any public request for comment. I was a Tidal user for about a year, between the UX/UI of the Tidal App and the continued skepticism of what exactly MQA does it is simply not worth the price tag.
Alll signs point to MQA being a classic “snake oil” instance - consider Apple Music or Amazon Prime Music’s lossless libraries to compliment your NAS library
1
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
2 comments