TIDAL Masters is now available on all Android smartphones

jonnybee123

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TIDAL Masters is now available on all Android smartphones.

Tidal takes MQA-powered ‘Masters’ hi-res music to Android - Music Ally

Im in uk and am now getting the M symbol on MQA quality albums on my Galaxy S7 Android smartphone . Ive just read about it. Is this old or new news???


TIDAL MQA support goes Mobile for Android Users - Jan 7, 2019

TIDAL MQA support goes Mobile for Android Users

The latest from CES in Las Vegas sees high-resolution streaming audio’s 900-pound gorilla – TIDAL – announce MQA support to their Android App to “Deliver studio quality sound on the move.”
I don’t think it’s inflammatory to say that I want it all and I want it all on my smartphone. Well, at least an Android OS-enabled smartphone… iPhone users (like me) will have to wait a while longer before they can do the TIDAL/MQA dance on their devices, no hard date available, so it’s TBD. "The latest version of the app now features a Core Decoder. MQA Core: The first unfold of the Origami recovers all the direct music-related information and makes it available for either analogue or digital output at 88.2 or 96 kHz."

In an increasingly networked world that is seeing fewer and fewer (literal) strings attached to both our cloud-based visual and audio content – of particular interest to me is the no-strings high-quality audio content – I must say that I’m heartened to hear that more high-resolution options are available to consumers on one single device, rather than having to choose multiple devices to access disparate online music formats for listening.

While MQA continues to be a lightning rod for some in the high-fidelity industry and in the hobby as a whole, I’ve no such axe to grind and welcome all formats to the fold, especially if they can offer sonic benefits. But as always, YMMV. As for TIDAl/MQA support for Apple, I’ll wait patiently.

Press Release Highlights

TIDAL Masters is now available on all Android smartphones, so you can experience studio quality sound with TIDAL Masters wherever you choose to listen.

Global music and entertainment platform, TIDAL, first announced its partnership with MQA at CES in January 2017, after integrating MQA’s award-winning technology into its TIDAL HiFi tier on desktop. MQA captures, packages and delivers the original sound, at the highest quality, and in a file small enough to stream. With the latest update, the TIDAL Android app will now include the MQA decoder.
 
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Good news from Tidal.
 
I have been with Tidal for a few years now, was already impressed with the Hifi level service, I will be testing the MQA as soon as I can :) Not sure if my phone really will be good enough to benefit from it though. Can one also stream it to for example a Teufel Connector 2, or will that fall over?
 
TIDAL Masters is now available on all Android smartphones.
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"The latest version of the app now features a Core Decoder. MQA Core: The first unfold of the Origami recovers all the direct music-related information and makes it available for either analogue or digital output at 88.2 or 96 kHz."
Are you implying that all Android smartphones support hi-res audio at up to 96kHz?
 
Are you implying that all Android smartphones support hi-res audio at up to 96kHz?

Im not implying anything except that it works for me. Im just quoting the articles in the links and that Tidal MQA is now available on my Galaxy S7 when it wasnt 4 days ago.
 
Pretty much no benefit if the Android device's hardware doesn't support hi-res audio to begin with then!
 
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No i think what theyre saying is Tidal decodes MQA via its software. So its leaving your phone in MQA. thats how i understood it.
 
Im not an expert. Maybe someone else more knowledgeable has an input.
 
The TIDAL app (software) decoding to the MQA Core (first unfold) is hi-res audio at either 24bit/88.2 kHz or 24-bit/96kHz - you actually quoted a similar reference in your original post.

BTW, it's been reported on other forums that the TIDAL Android app's MQA signal can't be output through USB audio, so you can't even add an external MQA supporting DAC to the Android device and get a 'true' MQA experience that way.
 
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I just tested this on my 1 day old Moto G6 so not a high-end phone but the MQA (or master as it is called) is available there. While I can attempt to stream it to my Hifi, the device I have does not as yet support MQA. Therefore it downgrades the quality to Hifi. That said on the phone it technically plays MQA no problem.

I cannot vouch for the quality much as it was via the speaker, I also tried it via a pair of Teufel apt x compatible headphones. Sounded good but these are not the highest of high end headphone.
 
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Ok so this works fine on my phone but my question is when streaming Tidal to Chromecast - which supports hi res - do we now now get hi res out of the chromecast optical output? Or are we cable bandwidth limited or??
 
If you notice the audio quality indicator on the TIDAL app's player changes from 'MASTER' to 'HI-FI', when you use its Google Cast function - so no is the answer to the first question.

Even if it did, the MQA audio would not be decoded MQA Core (first unfold). This is because the Chromecast would be receiving the undecoded/distribution MQA file track directly from TIDAL's online server and not the (software) decoded MQA output from the TIDAL app's player on the Android device. So the only way to get the MQA decoded would be to attach a full MQA decoding DAC to the Chromecast.

BTW, what exactly do you mean by "Or are we cable bandwidth limited or?"?
 
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thanks for reply. Obvious when you put it like that. I forgot its the server that pings out the MQA audio - which chromecast could definitely not do anything with..

Re "bandwidth limited" - just that using optical out on the chromecast wouldn't give enough bandwidth for hi res uncompressed anyway?
 

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