zordaz wrote: > Most likely, but as MQA is a proprietary technology it is difficult to > say. Some of the claimed MQA features might still be available when > playing Tidal music via their app, but from what I remember for certain > others features you indeed need a MQA dac. > > I can only repeat my earlier comment over here: if you are looking for > decent, pristine lossless streaming Tidal is not the way to go anymore.
First, my intent here is to ask if anyone knows how to get ahold of the developer of the Tidal plugin? When multiple versions of an album are available, MQA vs non-MQA, it is choosing the wrong one. MQA does work otherwise, but my selection is cut way down due to some bug in the server logic, and if Volumio can get it right, so can picoreplayer. As for all the MQA "stuff", there are 3 things MQA tries to do. First, it measures and attempts to correct time an phase anomalies in the original recording and this is why an MQA will never give you the same data as a regular FLAC. MQA isn't a codec. It's a process. This stage can be played on a regular DAC but the benefit is minimal. The second stage can be done in software (proprietary software only, no open-source!) or hardware and it basically doubles the sample rate by using hints encoded in the lower bits the audio stream. These bits would normally be way under the noise floor anyway (hence why your MQA files are almost always 24 bit - I've never seen one that wasn't). This could be seen as "lossy" but you are encoding information that many people say you can't hear anyway! It's harmonics above 20Khz. The final step is done in hardware because its correcting the hardware. Its the same thing as as the first step, but instead of correcting the ADC, it corrects the DAC. This means the DAC is tested and on-board firmware does the final fix. That's the reason it has to be done in hardware because its specific to the hardware. So, people that take a FLAC file and compare it to the MQA will always hate MQA because they are treating it like a codec and expecting to get the same data as the flac - which isn't at all the goal! Its not gonna happen! People that listen to the format either can't tell the difference or usually see an improvement. I have done lots of testing and the MQA versions always sound better than the CD. As for comparing with really high-resolution FLAC files, I would need a few, but the MQA will certainly stream better for being more compact without that "dead" sound you get from mp3! So ... how to make this plugin always grab the MQA version when available? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ uudruid74's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=72371 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=115466 _______________________________________________ squeezenetwork mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/squeezenetwork
