Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Thread Like Summary - Tidal dumping MQA files

Hi

A friend of mine has non compatible MQA NAIM Atom Headphone edition. He uses Focal Utopias.
I was suggesting he should try Roon as he subscribers to TIDAL. Now he said TIDAL are gradually migrating to hires FLAC.

Any opinions on which is better source say with MERIDIAN 7200SEs?


Should I be thinking of replacing my 210?

Kevin

Cynical Retrospective Comment

The involved evolving market providers have had your money but can no longer support your originally promoted choice .

We Meridian owners and invested users of MQA/Roon/Tidal are and never have been very important in the now retrograde evolutionary grand scheme of the future.

Our enjoyment was great while it lasted but hey ho that's life in all respects.

Hector

Tonight I'm streaming 'The Division Bell" off Tidal in mixed format.
A song comes on that full of depth and beauty so I press the Roon Signal Path button and it says MQA 88.1, awhile later the music becomes 2 dimensional and lifeless in comparison and press the button and read 24/192 FLAC!

Why can't people just listen? So what if MQA isn't bit perfect when whatever it is sounds so much better? Maybe we should go back to black and white TV while we're at it.

Sadly, the one USP left for Tidal has been withdrawn. Have been checking my favourite MQA albums, and most are now Flac...Qobuz is cheaper, too.

A sad development.

Some people claim that Qobuz files are better quality than those files from Tidal. That’s not my experience on recently subscribing to both. So, we are stuck between choosing one or the other, without the MQA differentiation.

Is it known if the replacement of MQA recordings with high-resolution FLAC is a decision made by Roon or Tidal (replacement as opposed to giving users a choice).

I'd like to figure out who to complain to ;(

John

It is Tidal's policy to "replace" MQA with HiRes. That policy has been made public.

Roon has not made any such policy made public. Instead they're silent but have implemented the same policy.
In yesterdays Roon update they didn't even mention it. That alone made me decide not to extend Roon.

Still on the fence with Tidal.
One other reason for Tidal was that I liked their Friday tailored playlist "My New Arrivals". The last few weeks it hasn't updated properly and today it's completely gone.
They remove everything I like.

If they have a HiRes version the MQA version will be hidden.
If there's no HiRes we can still access the MQA version.

Roon just killed MQA access with the 2.0 update. I'm done with Roon.

But not so with Roon?

Have just cancelled Tidal. Perhaps feedback at that level may make them reconsider.

I don't have Roon, but have a Wiim Pro, and that has the same issue as people are reporting on Roon.

Wiim will issue a future firmware release to fix this.

In the short term, the Node works and plays all MQA material I tried and have saved in my playlists.

I'm playing via Roon to my 210 with this new fantastic Roon 2.0.28.
I selected an album by Talk Talk which is shown as MQA and I don't get MQA. I try to play the HiRes instead, same story.
Roon is so confused I don't even know what it's trying to stream. It sounds like garbage and floats in and out as if it's changing resolution as it plays and the G65 shows it as TV logic.

WHAT THE F DID ROON DO?? Excuse my french.

Does this mean I need an update for the 210 before it will understand what Roon is doing and until then I get this broken [censored]?

Every 48k song sounds like absolute trash with continuous dropouts.
Some 96k sounds produce no sound. I can see 96k on the speakers and no sound comes out. Others play fine.

Use Roon's signal path to confirm what is actually being streamed.

I'd check you have the default DSP preset setup as you wish on the G65.

What preset do you normally use for 2 channel audio?

Regards,
Carl

All the hi-rez MQA I listen to on Roon has been replaced by FLAC, but there's still some 44.1 MQA content that I'm in the process of comparing to higher rez Qobuz.
I will likely drop Tidal also now that the Qobuz library is filling out and I only preferred Tidal for MQA otherwise. A sad day.

Hi Carl,

Here's the thing. Roon says it's sending a mighty fine stream to me, the speakers show they receive the correct sample rate, but out comes garbage.
I play another song and it plays fine. I go back and play the same song again and it sounds like garbage.

Video of example

It's not the presets. It worked fine before the update, now it doesn't. And the 210 plays direct to the DSP speakers in this case.

Yes I started the 1 month free Qobuz account yesterday. Will evaluate this evening, busy watching PL games now

I just listened to your video, I hear what you mean ... it's all over the place till about 10 seconds or so in.

Is this problem only when streaming from Tidal to the 210?

What happens if switching Roon to a different source (local file) and/or to a different zone?

I think you need to post in #support over at Roon to get them to look it.

You do realise that it is changes that Tidal have made don't you ?

I found MQA to sound much better than FLAC on my SE system.
Too bad, it was good while it lasted. Thanks, Tidal.

I noticed it when I was listening to something that didn't sound right, I saw the 218 was downsampling a 192 FLAC file.

Can’t Roon implement a toggle for this?

For sound quality I have been impressed by the best versions of MQA on tidal, having a better sound stage and attack relative to the (even hires) FLAC, but also I have found the result of MQA to be less impressive. Not all MQA sounded better to my ears. I think MQA had the benefit that it required less bandwidth, but we are 10yr further and steaming 96khz/24bit is no problem anymore in most countries. I will miss MQA, I thought it made sense and sometimes sounded better. But I will never regret the SE-upgrade, I think that shines even in 44khz/16bit. I sometimes go for a listen to other speakers and tend to come back to my DSP7200SEu, they are special.
I have no expectation that MQA will come back to us in some way, the commercial perspective looks too thin.

Regards

Hi

I don’t care very much for audio formats anymore the real upgrades are Acoustic Treatment.

In support of MQA I never heard an example where MQA sounded inferior to cd quality or 96/24.

I was never a fan of the guy who made the online vids regarding MQA alleged weaknesses to flac, I found him to be smug and possibly just trying to earn a reputation for himself.

Over on the 'science' audio forum I posed a question asking if they still believed the cd players of the 1980's were indistinguishable from modern dacs and transports and the guys over there still believe the differences are inaudible! I asked what the point of the rating chart was if they all sound the same? Anyhow these number crunchers could never subjectively listen to MQA and choose it over redbook standard, they don't admit to hearing a difference in hear hi rez.

Farewell, MQA streaming: may your passing be temporary.

Ironically the owner commissioned an MQA smear job when it first came out. A "paper" was written by someone who had no idea what MQA was.

MQA Technical Analysis Hypothesis Paper