There is a Tidal app for OSX and it supports MQA. The main bit here is that MQA is now available on android devices. Ive had hi-res running on my Galaxy S9 for a couple of weeks now.So this might be a dumb question alert - so if i have the Kef LS50 active and an iMac - can i access and play the MQA variants in full unadulturated Hi Res from my desktop from Tidal - like i don’t need an MQA convertor wired up to my Kefs?
Its been on Android for around 6 months in the form of my LG V30 with its MQA DAC. A few others since.
They have likely now added the first unfold in the Tidal App itself. The LG V30/V35/V40 can do full 24/192 unfold I believe with them having MQA hardware & license built-in.
I think it's a great development but I would assume that most people use bluetooth to stream Tidal/Spotify to their audio systems? Can Bluetooth handle those higher bit rates and send/play the music truly lossless?
but then who wants apple these days.
MQA is a very divisive format with many people questioning its use and quality as it is classed as a lossy format.
I’ve attached a link to a very persuasive article as to why it is bad for music
MQA is Bad For Music. Here's Why.
Most network recivers come with the majority of the main streaming services pre installed these days.
£20 pm / £240 pyr to stream (no ownership) seams a lot of money to me.
A good point it now reminds me of The Emperor’s New ClothesThat being said, MQA for me is a HiFi MayFly (insect with the shortest lifecycle : hatches, mates and dies in 24 hours) :
I don't think file size was ever the goal. I think it's purely objection handling and I don't expect it to go anywhere when 5G rolls around.
There have been alternatives, free and otherwise, to >CD audio available for decades, and yet download sources and physical media, which are not bandwidth constrained, are still few and far between.
MQA wants a new standard, their standard, and wants to make some money off of it. So it needs to be...
- Visible: Brand it, promote it. You don't want to end up in the dungeon of esoteric audiophilia.
- Accessible. Do a licensing deal with a streaming platform, joint go-to-market. Include it in the service at no extra cost, allay data consumption fears with sciencey bits and forget the fact that the default setting for streaming is somewhere around 320k MP3 and 90% of users won't change it anyway.
- Desirable: It's not just "high res", it's "Master Quality", just as the studio intended it, who doesn't want that? On their bundled earbuds... on a busy train.
Get those three correct, and you create a self-sustaining cycle and sit back and enjoy the revenue.