Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Info on MQA...

Since Tidal was lunched and since MQA was lunched I have tried to follow both subjects as I could but I am totally lost/confused as to what can be had with both offerings.

I known Tidal is a high quality (HIFI) streaming service that also incorporates MQA (but for a minority of its available albums).

If I want to get "into" Tidal/MQA what is physically required from me in equipment to get the service and be able to use MQA?

Is there a way to not only stream from Tidal but actually buy the music to save it on a CD, DVD or on a memory card in FLAK format so that I can use it with other equipment like my car that can play from a FLAC file?

Finally what is required and what does Meridian offer equipment wise to decode and play MQA?

Thanks for your inputs.

The Tidal desktop app and Audirvana+ can perform the first level of decoding MQA to 96KHz (max). It's likely that Roon will offer MQA decoding (possibly full unfold) as well as some stage.

The new Meridian 218 Zone Controller can fully decode MQA. As can the 818.3 and 808.6.

However for a DSP setup, the DSP need to be SE versions ... otherwise again it is limited to 96KHz max.

Also sending the MQA signal though the Meridian processor will prevent MQA decoding. So the decoding device needs to be after the processor and before the speakers. 218 : Set-up tips & tricks etc.

There a huge amount of discussion on this, it a long read but really the only way to catch-up and get up to speed and also to know how the options have evolved over time.

Regards,
Carl

Other references:
TAS - MQA’s Unexpected Twist
DAR - MQA & Tidal where are we now?

It's worth stating that "having MQA" doesn't mean that you have to have full-fat fully decoded MQA. 96/24 MQA is going to sound pretty good and having 96/24-limited kit actually makes the whole thing a LOT simpler, because:

a) You don't need a hardware decoder (you can choose the TIDAL app, or Audirvana+, or at some point, Roon) and can stream to the previous generation of Sooloos endpoints (MS200, MS600).

b) You can apply whatever DSP you want in your surround sound processor, not having to worry about destroying the metadata for future decoding.