Qobuz users ... What the?


I've been enjoying Qobuz since signing up for it late last year when they dropped their price.  Saturday I got the latest of the emails from Qobuz announcing new releases, etc.  One of the things they highlight is new playlists from their partners. There was a playlist from PS Audio that looked interesting and, since this is a great way to find new music, I listened to it last night.  Partway through it I was struck by a track with a huge (actually it's cavernous) sound stage so I glanced at the playlist to see the name.  The track is Nordheim: Colorazione by a group called Cikadu Duo.  It's a percussion piece with sounds coming from all over the place.  However, what REALLY caught my eye was that it was listed (in the Lumin app) as "MQA 24bit/88K)."  I got up and looked at the Lumin display as well - sure enough MQA 24/88.  The album is from the label 2L and further research shows that it was recorded in surround sound and released on SACD so that explains the enormous sound stage.  In addition, there are several other tracks from 2L in this playlist (right before and after Colorazione) and these also play as MQA but with 24bit/352K resolution!  Interestingly,  the albums that these tracks are from do not show the "Hi-Res Album" badge although there are duplicates that do show the hi-res badge.  It looks like 2L provided Qobuz with MQA-encoded files instead of the standard resolution (16/44) files and Qobuz is just streaming them as received.

Just to make sure this is real and not a bug in the Lumin app (unlikely since the Lumin itself is also reporting MQA), I'd like to know if other Qobuz users who have MQA-capable DACs see the same thing.

Interesting times!
djohnson54
I just started listening to that play list this morning. Only made it part way through. Will check out the rest of it tomorrow. I don't have an MQA dac so can't report on that. There is some interesting stuff on there aside from the usual Diana Krall and Norah Jones tracks.
@sonicjoy They all play as 16/44 on the Windows and Android apps. I’m betting you see the same thing. Thanks for checking.  And yes, there's some interesting stuff there.  Not all of it is to my taste but I don't think I had to skip a single track because I couldn't stand it!
Additional information.

I've had some time to do more investigating and apparently many of the non-HiRes badged 2L label albums on Qobuz are (at least tagged as) encoded as MQA.  I say "at least tagged as" because I encountered on album today that showed up as MQA 16/44 and I don't think this is even valid.  Well, I suppose you could encode an album as 16/44 as MQA but what's the point?