What happen to MQA on Tidal?

MQA never was welcomed in this house of stereo. I also dropped Stereophile and TAS subscriptions in part because of their sales pitch for it. Don't mess with music signals, lesson learned.

I never got into MQA after reading a paper on it by Bob Carver where he said at best it did a little of what his old sonic holography did (eliminate crosstalk) to better position instruments and voices in the soundstage, but at worst, in later iterations, it didn't even seem to do that. It was a lossy method of slight compression that might have been needed and helped when not everyone had 100Mbps (or higher speeds) Internet. But now? Not so much. It was an idea whose time has come and gone. 

My "issue" with Tidal involved them not honoring an agreement for me to purchase another full year's subscription through Best Buy at a reduced price. 

My subscription rolled over in April but recently I was sent an email by Best Buy saying more or less, "Sorry, we charged your credit card, but now you can't have your year subscription at the reduced price. You'll need to contact Tidal by September 30th and convert it to a monthly subscription". Which of course is much higher at $10.99 I think.  Yeah, not a lot of money, but it is the principle that matters to me. I paid for a year in advance to get it for about $7.99/month which made it more in line with Amazon Music and Apple Music.  

Now, with this bait and switch, the cost is higher. If Amazon or Apple had "Connect" apps I might switch to them. I sure don't want to go back to lying Spotify, even if they actually do roll out CD quality streaming. 

Right now my mixes on Tidal still show MQA and CD quality songs. 

My Roon still shows MQA through Tidal.

@tvrgeek Wrote:

MQA was a flop. For better or worse. I expect to see Atmos follow suit. 

+200