Should we be Worried? Tidal MQA is Gone!

Should we freak out?
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[@lambdastorm7787]

How MQA gained traction in the first place is beyond me.

[@BrandonAdams1010]

I think it is just a product of its time, regarding data transmission and server capabilities. But that's just my wild assumption.

[@lambdastorm7787]

@@BrandonAdams1010 proven scam since day 1, lots of articles debunking its supposed 'featureset'. The wide chi-fi adoption pushed a lot of manufacturers to do the same. That's the only logical explanation.

[@bigbuckoramma]

MQA = Unnecessary DRM = Nothing of value was lost. So long, and thaks for all the fish.

[@mickeybreg1]

i really never understand mqa. i’m not using it but learning something new is always fun. thanks for explaining things in easy way

[@donglemadness]

Happy to help!

[@the7observer]

FLAC is lossless format so no concerns about quality (is even better because is open source, so more artists can access it). The only ones making a fuss about it are: The people who do not understand audio formats or the MQA mafia members suggestion: talk about different audio file formats (mp3, m4a, flac, aac, etc) and your experience with quality with them. Even more interesting would be to have a blind test done with different people. (also talk about an alternative that occupies less space than FLAC but without much noticeable loss of quality)

[@sworddice]

actually i'm happy. MQA is exclusive, narrow compatibility and somewhat inferior compared with widely used flac. MQA benefits them, not users. we need a proper setup just to play it.

[@stevetech5150]

to my ears, i perceive more clarity, detail and dynamic range in flac files vs. just about any other file type i listen to.

[@shinigamilord86]

i actually called this out years ago and nobody believed me, i knew this will not last

[@Milo_Molnar]

Super news. I can buy ibasso DC04 Pro which doesn t support MQA. By the way great explanation.

[@AndrewLamas19]

I see this as an absolute win. Also Andy you should check out the e1da 9039s.

[@gwine9087]

I cannot miss what I have never had.

[@zygote8888]

3500 FLAC on my SD Card on phone 🙏🏼

[@nathz2020]

Yes i get your point, i also research this year ago flac is better than mqa even the cd 16bit flac file is better.

[@wahid-lg1kk]

The problem is the gear. Mostly it unfolds 4x or 8x. Not 16.

[@nathz2020]

@@wahid-lg1kk what gear? sorry.

[@wahid-lg1kk]

@@nathz2020 The equipment you use to listen to it? That gear. The mqa guys made a fatal mistake, like a time bomb waiting to take them out, they imposed no standards on equipment used to decode it, many high end digital audio players have only 2 or 4 times unfolding, so the mqa is not even as good sounding as an MP3. If they insisted the standard to be 16 times, or no license to make decoder, they would still be in business, it's a very good format.

[@nathz2020]

@@wahid-lg1kk yeah i agree with you i consider mqa as a lossy audio thats why i always listen to flac or lossless audio with my gear dongle dac, bit perfect software, and iem.

[@wahid-lg1kk]

@@nathz2020 It's not lossy when unfolded 16 times and the original file is actually a studio file. This situation is vanishingly rare, due to how the morons at MQA managed their business. Most DAPs unfold 2-4 times and that's worse then MP3 320. I have original MQA-CD studio files that are head and shoulders above flac, no noise. At all. Perfect black background. Larger dynamic range. Losing MQA is a loss to the audiophile community, most of whom have never ever heard a proper MQA file, played at 16 times unfolding. Those guys did things like compressing a flac into an mqa transport at 16 times, then you unfold it at 4 times and it's garbage. There were no standards of implementation applied to the licencees, and Tidal was the worst offender.

[@humanbass]

Imagine when people find about this open source lossless format known as Flac. What a revolution it will be!!!!!111 😅

[@Zombieflourish]

MQA has never been a thing in my book when we talking about quality, it has always been inferior when comparing to FLAC and WAV, let along DSD. Im also aint gonna lie that when Tidal introduced MQA, I did use it almost all the time when I still had my LG phones tho xD

[@herlonsilva]

This base of understanding is very cool and interesting.👍

[@titanattack4743]

thanks for Information

[@donglemadness]

My pleasure

[@matthewhilty4209]

Goldensound did a good video about MQA. FLAC is a lossless compression , MQA is a lossy format. There is not a large difference in a lot of songs but the FLAC sounds better to me and does not have that preringing noise that can sometimes give me listening fatigue.

[@---on6qk]

Wow what mic are you using in this video? Sounds extremely rich and detailed.

[@donglemadness]

Thanks. I use Rode Wireless Pro

[@ocean21990]

Hello Andy , 👋😊 , please review the Meze Alba in future

[@donglemadness]

I hope so too!

[@robsteinert7375]

I 100% agree. Good explanation, thank you

[@donglemadness]

You're very welcome. 🙏

[@EugeneZheng]

DIsappointed as Naglfar - Vittra is MQA and is always special to me; as my daughter's name is Vittra.

[@c.sec73]

Goldensound did a deep dive on MQA long time ago. MQA is crap. It is taking the source and altering it. Sometimes the MQA and original sound the same and sometimes there's a difference. As you said, it all depends on the original source file and on the mastering/processing done. I had one particular song which I liked in MQA because it was artificially boosting bass and mids, which wasn't in the source file. It sounded more fun, but I knew it's not true to source. So for "fun" listening it was kinda OK. But I am always looking for that detail, for that original quality that artist wanted to present. I love hearing artifacts. Sometimes I find that this one artifact adds so much depth into the song and it's so much better with the artifact than without. I also read that sometimes non-MQA versions of songs on Tidal were converted from MQA file, not the other way around. Which then proved why MQA and non-MQA were sounding the same. I subscribed to Qobuz and have been listening to same tracks on Tidal and Qobuz and I could literally hear the difference in certain songs. Some were more resolving, some had more artifacts, some had more air and some sounded exactly the same between platforms. Overall, I am using Qobuz as my primary platform although it's not available in my country, which made the subscription tricky to get and I do not like the interface of Qobuz apps for Windows and mobiles. Maybe if Tidal gets the original files and converts them to FLAC, I could go back to Tidal? Only, what if... what if the remaining FLAC files on Tidal will be the ones converted from MQA! Tainted platform.

[@donglemadness]

Thanks for this!

[@ultraprimez]

i Also Love Local Audio Playback Sir .

[@FranciscoHoLi]

Dear Andy, thank you very much for this great explanation and description. My private collection mainly includes FLAC files. On TIDAL I really liked MQA and thought it was better than FLAC. I was shocked by the announcement of TIDAL and wasn't sure whether I should continue the subscription. Thanks to your explanation, I now know that this concern was unfounded. Thank you very much! By the way, I want to buy a new over-ear closed back headphones. Do you have a recommendation for me? Kind regards, Francisco

[@donglemadness]

My pleasure. You want a closed back headphone? Just check my video on TAKSTAR Pro 82, I think you might like it, so does FiiO FT1 or SIVGA Robin. Cheers

[@Qboro66]

Oh well, with MQA going away from Tidal, there'll be no more dilemma about getting the Onix Alpha XL1 and the FIIO K11...😕

[@kerjianlai6391]

haha i am exactly release on 1985.

[@FranciscoHoLi]

​@donglemadness I own several IEMs, Hifiman Sundara, Sennheiser HD 599, Beyerdynamics DT 990 Pro and 880 Pro, AKG 550 MKII and Sony WH1000 XM4. I need some clossed Back if my wife gets crazy while my music is too loud😂😂😂😂

[@donglemadness]

Lol! That's a SOLID reason to get one

[@wahid-lg1kk]

I have music collections on my card in MQA and it's just better then anything I have in flac for the same albums. I have king Crimson and Yes etc, clean clean clean big dynamic range, total black background, really studio quality. Can't find it in that quality anywhere in any other format.

[@jalee1910]

Finally they make a move of not using MQA format. But i heard tht HDtracks might come out with a streaming platform tht will be using MQA format, but not really sure how true is this.

[@shamnoor07]

Yurp start July TIDAL will stop MQA... Huhu gonna download again which got MQA format to FLAC...😢😢

[@rawjugv.u9519]

Your explanation is perfect, i can fully understand. TQVM Andy. However, what happened to devices that support MQA unfolding or rendering or whatsoever, which is i saw it state like MQA x 8, is that this particular devices will changing as well or the features will no function at all. As i can see, the more MQA unfolding is the expensive that devices can be. Let say MQA x 4 is cheaper than MQA x 16.

[@donglemadness]

My pleasure. Just remember those devices will still be usable on non-Tidal platform. I reckon that MQA will still exist perhaps through other streamers or offline MQA. Even if you don't use MQA, those devices will function perfectly for PCM or DSD playback and to me that is more than enough already

[@Fawzay]

preferably Flac although better is Wav format and MQA is a lossy format and upscaled hence it may create an artifact in the sound. Hence, mastering side of the music source is important

[@andy.w]

FLAC == ZIP = 100% lossless. It means you can convert wav to flac and back to wav forever without losing a single bit of data. You gain nothing by using wav other than 10x storage loss. It was a false assumption based on older (2000-2010 ish) hardware that wav is easier to decode. For any cheapest player nowadays, decoding flac is as easy as breathing.

[@CATHOLIC_KNIGHT73]

Hey Andy, I'm a big fan of you and I have a question. What audio player should I install on my PC? I'm currently using HiBy audio player on my phone which is bit perfect for every flac music that I love . Any suggestions for an audio player for PC with the same quality as HiBy music player? Thanks!

[@donglemadness]

Thanks!. For myself, on my Windows 10 laptop and Windows 11 PC, I use Windows Media Player most of the time, and Tidal App. As far as I can tell, Windows 10 and 11 are already Bitperfect for PCM files, you probably need a special ASIO/Wasapi setup with Foobar2000 only when you need to go beyond PCM for DSD. As for me, I only play DSD on my phones via HIBY Music App, because it is a pain to setup ASIO on my PC, lol

[@CATHOLIC_KNIGHT73]

@@donglemadness Just downloaded Foobar2000 today and I was blown away on how accurate it decodes the details cleaner on the FLAC files than the windows media player! I'm just using a cheap DAC but man, the sound difference was slight but an improvement. I wish I could afford HiBy Fc6 or your new favorite Onix Alpha and so on LMAO. Thank you so much! You're the audiophile hero Andy!

[@donglemadness]

Enjoy!

[@rawjugv.u9519]

Wow bunch of FLAC. Can I have it? 😊

[@LGV35DAP]

Right smack on my birthdate. MQA will not be missed but this probably will mess up my playlists.

[@shamelessplace111]

From what I understand the company behind MAQ is going bankrupt and that's the main reason that MQA sorry MQA is going away title does not want to purchase it from what I have researched title was actually going to buy it the rights to it and they didn't for whatever reason so that's the way it goes it's going the way of eight-track tapes and cassette tapes

[@farukuruc]

Hi Andy. Could you please recommend a good quality cable for ER2XR? I bought cable from Lunashops on Aliexpress but the cable wasn't good. Thanks.

[@donglemadness]

My own ER2XR is running on stock Etymotic cable. I have tried several cables from AliExpress since 2021 but ended up back with the stock cable because the aftermarket ones tend to make it brighter sounding on top of being non angled. Ideally I want to make my own Valkynaz version for ER series but not sure if the stiffness would hamper usability a lot

[@inbaralfasi8474]

If I use Tunelf to download songs from tidal, and I choose the download to be Flac but the track on Tidal is MQA, would it have the Flac sound or MQA?

[@donglemadness]

The encoding format will be MQA, but the stored file will be in Flac format

[@inbaralfasi8474]

@@donglemadness So it would be a losless version of the lossy file and sound the same as MQA does on Tidal, right?

[@donglemadness]

@@inbaralfasi8474 Yes

[@DexDoria-um5on]

Hi Andy can i use a DAC dongle to my receiver or integrated Amp?what is the pros and cons? Im planning to buy ifi go link to connect my iPhone to my receiver via ifi go link

[@donglemadness]

Yes you can do that, use a dongle as DAC feed to your amps as a Line feed, I do that as well

[@DexDoria-um5on]

@@donglemadness thank you so much Andy :)

[@jamesberryman9893]

I'm actually upset with losing MQA and was the only reason I moved from Apple music to Tidal. I guess I will have to get used to FLAC only.

[@donglemadness]

FLAC gives you Bitperfect, so you should be good

[@FranciscoHoLi]

❤😂❤😂😂😂😂

[@LyuboA]

Basically MQA is literally MP3 with a flashy name Lossy Audio format where FLAC is Lossless audio format

[@joshuasantoso556]

How or where do you get a FLAC file?

[@donglemadness]

It was from my CD collection ripped into FLAC, and then I bought many of them from Bandcamp

[@IderuShikesu]

Ouh no.. So anyway 😈

[@richardalvarado1877]

They don't sound as clean as cd-quality flac: there's a lot of white noise being injected to the sound when unfolded. Don't hate me on this, but for me, it's the same as upscaling your regular flacs in poweramp.

[@Hijynx87]

I've never had the "pleasure" of listening to mqa even though my btr7 supports it.

[@DarenLee]

Feels like you are talking to “me” lol. Good also no more MQA on less thing to think about. Btw you notice the family plan tidal much cheaper now? All my users after divided by 6(users in total) are playing much MYR4.x per month.

[@donglemadness]

🤣 Relax brooo. Yes I noticed that too, the plan seems to be cheaper for family

[@proffessasvids]

Mqa was a scam. Miserable Quality Audio lol xx

[@alexanderm.9566]

Good riddance, scam. You won't be missed. Rest in pieces.

[@mokisan]

Fudge mqa.

[@LyuboA]

Great finally this crap is gone