What happen to MQA on Tidal?
After listening to Tidal only on my phone the last few weeks, I went to stream on my home system but soon realized all my MQA tracks were no longer showing up and the MQA parameters were absent in my streaming settings. I see Tidal is in "administration" (Chapter 11???). One of the main reasons I subscribed to Tidal was MQA and purchased a DAC that could decode the format. I think I should have at least been informed by Tidal if it was cancelling MQA. Any thoughts?
I know a lot of people hate (hated) MQA, but like any format I have listened to (Vinyl, CD, SACD, FLAC, MQA, etc.) , some things sound great and others on a plain old red book CD sounds better.
Perhaps... but how many people do you know who have an Atmos system with at least 5 bed level speakers and 4 overhead? How many people have heard one? No I don't have a number, but I read reviews on prominent audio web sites where they trash Atmos and you come to find out the reviewer doesn't have a system and have never listened to one. They are just guessing , and guessing wrong |
I don’t think a poll conducted 15 years ago which appears to be confined to car stereos is really relevant today "The online poll of the mobile electronics industry was conducted during the fall of 2008 and Mobile Electronics recently presented the award to Alpine." |
MQA was disappointing on my system compare to streaming FLAC stations off High Res Audio Online. Nothing like a free 192kHz stream at 5500bits/s. I also gave up on TIDAL after very limited selection several years ago, has it improved? My home office sound system: Foobar2000/ASIO > USB-data-only > TEAC NT505> AQ King Cobra > Parasound Zamp v.3 > ProAc Tablettes.
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I have only heard a decent Atmos set up in an Audio Store. I like my 5.1 and don’t intend to ditch it but I remain curious. MQA I have heard in a few settings. I never consistently heard a difference when playing FLAC vs MQA. Different remasterings could have accounted for any changes that I perceived. As mentioned upstream the biggest turnoff was the end to end hardware requirements. I completely lost respect for TAS, and Robert Harley and Steven Stone in particular, for their relentless shilling for MQA. I canceled back then and haven’t read a word by either of them since. I would have loved to have known if either of them had a financial stake in MQA. Stereophile, by comparison, took a much more balanced approach, with some reviewers being openly hostile, and gained a lot of credibility with me in comparison to TAS
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Soooo, physical media isn't really "dead" and I should hang on to my CDs? My fixed income and 3 Mbps internet (I kid you not, 3 Mbps) seem to have kept me from going down the streaming rabbit hole. Best of luck to all the early adopters, but I suspect time and mortality will catch up to me before the streaming rat's nest gets sorted out in a manner that benefits me. |
