MQA new owner is the Canadian , from Ontario, Lenbrook group , the NAD, Blue sound, and PSB speakers owner too. Will continue MQA with Tidal and others? Wait and see…
Yeah… Let’s see if Tidal will keep the strategy to change all High Res catalogue from MQA to FLAC.
Actually that isn’t its policy. It is to add a FLAC copy of hi-res files where available. The MQA files will still remain for users to choose. Obviously if the MQA sale results in further new software no longer being available then the existing MQA catalogue cannot be expanded. Lenbrook’s press output is unclear on this as they were previously a licensee but relating to the hardware side of things.
Anyway, Tidal are offering a choice rather than a substitution. At least that what they advised .
Turns out it’s not quite true actually. I rarely use my Tidal account these days so I could be mistaken, but from my use, you cannot chose whether to play the FLAC or MQA version of an album. Users have no choice.
High res albums are tagged as “Max” quality on Tidal, only when you play an album can you tell if it’s FLAC or MQA, and there’s no way to select one format or the other. It’s entirely up to Tidal which is streamed.
Thanks Anup. So the choice is made by Tidal and not the subscriber. Big difference of course. As Tidal was to all intents and purposes the only significant outlet for MQA and as I assume no new MQA tracks are being added that would seem to signify the effective end of the format at least as we knew it. Lenbrook may have its own plans but equally it may have acquired the MQA IP for the simple reason of preventing its purchase by competitors ( a variation of “warehousing”). So far there seems no indication that the software side of matters will necessarily be involved.
In looking for background to this I naturally visited Tidal’s home page. I was astounded to see that they now seem to have defined their service as being rock/pop only. There seems to be no mention of other genres at all.
OK there must be a legacy catalogue still available to subscribers. Not being one it is not possible to look further. However is Tidal adding new releases of jazz, classical etc. ?
From the Tidal App itself - which works directly with dCS via Tidal Connect - one can chose the specific genre you want to browse through. That said, I have no idea how well Tidal is doing in adding new release to every genres. I suspect they’re struggling.
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You assume incorrectly. Tidal continues to add new MQA tracks each week. I just checked and new albums were added today. On the first page I see both 24/44 and 24/48 releases today.
Just for clarification most of the MQA releases on Tidal are not 24/96 or higher “Hi Rez” versions rather 24/44 MQA versions.
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Thanks Jim, that is very helpful for understanding exactly what is going on. Of course it will need looking at again next year as recording release schedules can be very extended and the MQA files added this week may have been encoded before April ( when MQA entered receivership).
If you would be so kind here are two classical releases, one from UMG and one from a big independent. Both came out today - have Tidal added them?
- J S Bach ,Goldberg Variations, Vikingur Olaffson , DGG.
- Schutz Madrigals, Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew, Harmonia Mundi.
I have a serious reason for understanding if they are continuing to deal with this genre but to go into it would move this thread OT further.
Yes, the first one is listed . I believe they have a 2023 release of the second one too.
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Either way i made the change to Qobuz and I’m happy
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Just MHO, Qobuz and NativeDSD are the way to go.
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