The best part about MQA bankruptcy..

Yeah, TIdal shouldn’t have to go bankrupt also, they’re just losing credibility for letting mqa spoof so many people.

But it’s true, streaming higher res audio is a trickle compared to Netflix, which streams 42 times as much with their 4k plan as Tidal does with any plan, for notable less money. (Tidal streams the same amount no matter which plan you get)

If you bought a dac that has an mqa chip, remember that mqa's only hope is to sound like it wasn't even there, and it could actually really equal what it would sound like if Tidal had just trickled more, like everyone else does.

Ha, if mqa wants to be the best thing ever, it has to sound like it doesn't even exist, anyways.

MQA is very good from my experience with a MSB DAC.

i agree with this... on my msb analog dac, mqa music sounds terrific... though i have to admit this observation is probably more about the msb than mqa...

@erik_squires Re: worldwide internet speeds, I don’t know where [everyone writing about this] gets their information. Here’s a source from which I’d argue that compression is still very useful (are we really that elite?):

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/internet-speeds-by-country

I have a Meridian system, and the MQA from Tidal sounds a bit thin, although the ones with Studio rating tend to sound fine; the MQA from Qobuz sounds much better, but the recordings are so rare that when I asked them about it the respondent seemed stunned that there was any MQA at all.

As for Tidal being in trouble, I hope someone will explain this to me; would they definitely lose all ability to to stream everything they have, now, or is this just speculation about what a new MQA licensor would do (who pays the MQA fees; the record label or Tidal?)?

According to this reasonably recent Netflix Tech Blog post, the highest they stream at is 11.8 Mbps: https://netflixtechblog.com/optimized-shot-based-encodes-for-4k-now-streaming-47b516b10bbb.

For 192/24 uncompressed stereo audio streaming, we have 192,000 * 2 * 24 = 9.216 Mbps. Which is lower, yet surprisingly close to the max Netflix data rate.

There is a neuro-physiological reason behind this: human brain devotes on average roughly about as much neural processing volume to visual as to audio information.

In blind people, audio processing takes over part of the brain volume that otherwise would be dedicated to visual processing, and they can "see" better with their hearing.

So, while it is true that those who can stream 4K Netflix movies can stream uncompressed 192/24 audio too, audio compression still has its place, especially in the areas of the world where bandwidth isn't as plentiful.