Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Thread Like Summary - MQA Limited in Administration (Chapter 11)

What HiFi - MQA is going into Administration.

Well spotted, Bruce!

Well if everything in the article is true (Tidal gradually replacing all MQA with FLAC) this is very bad news for MQA.

I must say, if they did go down that route, I would personally have zero reason to choose Tidal over numerous other streaming services. MQA was a unique selling point; hi-res FLAC is not.

[Not to mention they would have lied about their intention to maintain the existing MQA catalogue, I can’t abide companies who lie to their paying customers.]

I raised the issue with Tidal via their support desk.






Suggest if anyone else feels similarly then maybe contacting Tidal may help change the position.

We can but hope

Hey everyone. At the risk of repetition, I wanted to add my (personal) tuppence worth here.

It’s clear that TIDAL is not currently going to give us a choice when it comes to the priority of MAX formats streamed when they have *both* PCM and MQA. In other words, it’s:

"HiRes" FLAC -> MQA (of any kind) -> CD quality FLAC -> Lossy

It appears that they *are* monitoring demand for MQA vs. FLAC preference (and vice-versa -- there are those who would prefer CD quality FLAC to MQA of any kind).

So if you have a preference for MQA, please email them at support@tidal.com (or submit a request at https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/requests/new) simply saying that you consider MQA to be the higher quality format and you would like to be able to prefer MQA over HiRes FLAC.

The more people who do this, the more likely we’ll actually get a choice.

Thx.

First I am not a qualified Accountant, but have quite some experience in running smaller companies including my own

The latest posted accounts 2021 and the accompanying strategic reports make uncomfortable reading for anybody involved - huge losses for two years in a row.

What surprises me that for a small company such as MQA there is a quiet extraordinary amount of written verbiage- what are they trying to cover up.. the numbers demonstrate it’s a basket case financially. There is much emphasis on it remaining being classified as a “going concern” -really! Perhaps it’s a function of what happens when the ownership and funding is a financial institution - they have shareholders too. Anyhow they racked up some substantial interest on their loans.

I saw a couple of comments on here about hoping that Bob Stuart was well looked after. Well the Directors remuneration was almost £700K and Bob was one . The highest paid Director ( undisclosed) was earning close to £400K. Salaries overall circa £2.3 million for all 30 employees. I really wonder how that was justified for such a small entity haemorrhaging such losses and such modest income.

Not casting professional judgement, just my personal opinion and observations

At the end we all hope for a positive solution but it will require an owner with very deep pockets, but the current business model requires serious examination - continuing as is will not deliver a sustainable future.

Regards Huw

It should be said that it has been known for MQA content to disappear from Tidal in the past, which I never understood (and ultimately led to me leaving), however it does feel to me that their commitment is wavering. It saddens me to say this, but that's how it feels.

When I look with Roon I see all (all I have checked) MQA files are still there.

At £10.83, Qobuz Studio is cheaper than Tidal HiFi+ at £19.99 - so why pay more for no defacto MQA?

Like what ? Genuine question.
I used both Tidal and Qobuz for a while as part of the early Roon alpha testing. I was fairly ambivalent about them until MQA arrived. FWIW

Crikey….post that in the wrong forum and you’d start a war !!!

I was surprised, too - given the physical size of the Atom HE alongside the comparatively diminutive form factor of the Prime/PSU: the former could easily consume the latter for lunch.

Neither did the Focal Stellia sound anywhere near as good when hooked-up to the Atom HE compared to the wonderful performance of the Focal Stellia when paired with Meridian Prime/PSU.

Comment submitted to Tidal per request.

Submitted request.

I suspect that we are collectively a reasonable chunk of the MQA user base. We were one of the first brands to have hardware that handled it.

However, there may be vast silent majority (across all MQA enabled brands) who use it. Maybe they just didn't engage in the vitriolic BS on forums about it. So, you cannot really know how many people using the not-small number of MQA enabled brands are actually in favour of MQA. The haters took up most of the bandwidth so it's impossible to tell. In fact it (the BS) is the main reason why I have barely used certain forums in the last few years.

Tidal's response:

Debora M. (TIDAL)
Aug 16, 2023, 2:06 PM EDT

Hi Ian,

Thank you for getting in touch with TIDAL Support.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback regarding this situation. TIDAL has always prioritized and invested in superior audio quality. Our commitment to open platforms for both artists and fans drives our adoption of FLAC, and specifically HiRes FLAC as the preferred option for the best sound quality we offer.

In addition to utilizing MQA, we make use of various high-quality and immersive audio formats, such as Dolby Atmos, to provide our subscribers with a premium listening experience and more artists the opportunity to share their music exactly as it is intended to sound. However, our system will prioritize the HiRes Flac quality.

We’ll be sure your request gets in the right hands as we don't offer the option to choose the MQA format as preference at this time. Your feedback helps us improve and we appreciate your thoughts!

Thank you,
Debora
TIDAL Support

My reply:

Debora,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I appreciate that this is not your choice personally and you’re just conveying a management decision. I would like to expand a little on my original communication and convey the

I consider MQA to be a technically superior format to Hi-Res FLAC with technical justification (though I recognize this is a matter of debate amongst some in the audio community). I have made significant investment in rendering endpoint audio equipment which allows for the final unfolding to occur in the renderer. I subscribed to Tidal HiFi+ in the first place to get access to MQA and be able to prioritize playing MQA files when available. If I get forced into Hi-Res FLAC when MQA is available, the main service differentiator will have gone. As the consumer, why should I be forced to accept a choice which I find inferior in addition to consuming unnecessary additional bandwidth? Qobuz offers hi-res FLAC at a lower subscription cost, so switching service in that case won’t be a difficult decision.

Cheers, Ian[i][/i]