They aren’t telling anyone because they don’t know.
This subject has been raised on other forums with David Solomon of Qobuz USA e.g. Audiophile Style.
Basically Qobuz loads thousands of new albums a month to its servers. They are as supplied by the record labels. They do not have the resources to have people validating each file. In fact the whole operation is run with a remarkably small number of staff members ( latest figure is a total of 76 across all services. In comparison Tidal has 238. Spotify employs 5,584 !).
So no doubt someone at that album’s record label has mistakenly sent both Qobuz and Tidal the same file. If you contact Qobuz customer services and notify them they will probably take it down and ask the label to send them the correct file.
Make[s] sense Pete. Mind you, I’m not complaining about the sound quality, it isn’t half bad.
There’ve been a few other quirks lately with Qobuz, they’re apparently growing faster than they can maintain operational quality it seems, but I haven’t properly qualified the issues
I have made Qobuz aware of all instances of MQA content I ran across. Their response was
“Merci beaucoup ! Nous allons supprimer le MQA partout.”
“We will remove all MQA content.”
The best way to tell them is via the “improve this page” button at the bottom of the album page on the Qobuz Website (not the app). I usually get a response quite quickly.
I have noticed though that not all MQA content I have signalled has disappeared.
I like MQA and everything in between. Talking MQA is like talking Roon or Qobuz/Tidal, or cables, etc. to some people. If they don’t like it there seems to be an argument to try and convince you to join their viewpoint.
Hey if whatever you are listening to sounds good to you then enjoy it. Does it really matter that someone else doesn’t
I have a lot of concerns about MQA. They are secretive. They don’t want you to talk (or criticize) anything MQA. On the face of it it seems too good to be true – we will give you a smaller file that will sound BETTER than the bigger file from the same master. GoldenSound’s video is damning and to me convincing. Also are his retorts to the rebuttal (which seemed to be a press release from Meridian/MQA) read by “TheHonestAudiophile”. I have both Tidal and Qobuz. But pretty close to dumping Tidal just on the grounds that I think that MQA is not a good thing. Personally, I prefer the sound of DSD. But it’s all in the recording, engineering and mastering. 44.1/16 sounds fantastic when the aforementioned items are handled well.
There are two different issues here: (1) enjoying whatever music and format one desires; and (2) MQA’s less than transparent approach that raises red flags. One can enjoy the music and still be concerned. I choose not to partake, but respect anyone’s choice to listen and enjoy. But I do not trust MQA, I don’t believe they are honest, and believe they behave very much in the way of an entity that does not want outsiders to know what they are doing.
There is nothing wrong with your approach. For me honestly I don’t give MQA or any format that much thought. The good thing is if one doesn’t like a certain format, chances are they can stream that song in a different format. Now I know this isn’t 100% correct but most of the time I can find songs I like in multiple formats.
Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed and respected Hans’ calm and logical approach although I would not say that his talk provided an real answer to the Golden Sound video, the latter being almost exclusively technical in its approach rather than conversational. But it did offer an antidote to some of the more excessive comments on MQA that I have read over the past years which offer a counsel of perfection rather than acknowledging that sacrifices to numeric perfection can be be legitimate so long as the objective is rational.
Of course it is the latter element that has become questionable as the increasing availability of higher bandwidth internet connections and the use of adaptive bitstreaming by services such as Qobuz make the rationale for MQA debatable.
However there has always been a fear that record companies would adopt MQA as a mastering source. After all if one can keep a single inventory which can effectively meet different quality demands then why not do it? Should anyone think that no record company in its right mind would do this kind of thing I will give you an example.
During the mid to late 1990s I was highly involved in the implementation of ISRC ( ISO 3901) in the UK. I had to visit numerous record companies, pressing plants etc. I was at a company that had recently bought the rights to a large catalogue of 1960s hits and albums by some very well known artists. " what are you doing at the moment " I asked. “We are digitising everything to 16/44.1 as we will save so much space when we get rid of the old tapes”
This is too funny. It is now 2021 and in my line of work we still have to convince broadcasters to tag their media with ISRCs for performance reporting. Some do, most don’t. At least in the US.
It still the same then . Yes I had seemingly identical problems over here back at the turn of the century.
I was also the sucker who had to introduce the concept of ISRC to the major US record companies at copyright department level during a meeting in NYC. ISRC was originally an idea from Philips and Polydor adopted later as an international standard. This was pre- UMG so Philips and Polydor were wholly Dutch or German respectively. Boy did I get a “Not Invented Here” reception ,
The biggest hurdle I had ( back in the UK) was getting people to understand that once the code was given it was there forever. Many immediately tried to game the code by using elements to describe the sales price category it was in with no understanding that the same recording could be full price, mid-price later then budget but would retain the code.
That’s an interesting backstory Pete, thanks for sharing! I could speak tomes as to the pervasive mislabeling amidst broadcasters, which is mostly—and unfortunately—a result of limited resources station-side. This lead SoundExchange (a Performing Rights Organization in the US) to even offer ISRC matching where stations could upload their catalog and receive it with ISRCs, yet most small-to-medium broadcasters couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Part of my company’s services is we attempt to fill in these blanks as performances are reported, but it’s not a foolproof solution, as obviously the combination of track-artist-album can have multiple ISRCs due to multiple editions, market variations, etc.
Sorry for the temporary hijack, back to the regularly-scheduled MQA commentary: I have no problem with MQA. Some tracks I prefer in MQA, some in lossless from Qobuz, I am just grateful that there are so many choices to pick from, all from the comfort of my music room. Although I still remember the fondness of yore when browsing records at a, well, record store, and barely containing my eagerness to get back home with the new album to audition.
Hi Greg,
I would add an important third issue, and apologize for not mincing words: (3) MQA/Meridian and Tidal are directly lying to the public.
It is definitely not an original Master. It is a lossy rendition of the master. This is Tidal’s actual website, claiming it is the highest quality audio available and lossless. These are a flat out lies.
I do have a problem with how MQA is represented, but I dissociate this from my listening experience, which is largely enjoyable with a wide catalog.
I also have a problem with Qobuz, as every once in a while their stream has a bout of interruptions, like buffering. Switching to Tidal at that time results in a smooth stream, so it’s not a network issue on my end.
Bottom line, I sort of need both for the time being.
Worthwhile checking your account settings and that you are not allowing it to cache everything that you stream resulting in an overflowing cache.
In the past ( around 4 years ago) I too suffered from lots of buffering using their desktop player app. I happened to swap the cable to another port on my router and, hey presto, no more buffering issues. No idea why.
Thanks Pete! I’m streaming directly off the dCS, and didn’t see a place in Mosaic to manage provider-specific settings. I’ll check the account later today via their site. My network’s fine, both internally and in terms of Internet connectivity. As mentioned, this only occurs with Qobuz—and, in all fairness, quite infrequently—but nothing like being deeply-absorbed into some material only to have it abruptly pause. It’s highly annoying.
Mosaic just reflects what is going on with your account at Qobuz. So if you make a change in Mosaic you will find it reflected immediately in other views of your Qobuz account such as on a phone app. Conversely any change that you make to your Qobuz account via a Qobuz app will be reflected in Mosaic ( even if it is not specifically displayed there).
The Qobuz API as used in Mosaic does not display all of the options available for your account as it is really restricted to various modes of navigation and play. For example if you set your account using the Qobuz desktop app to play everything as MP3 then what you will get out of Mosaic and Qobuz will be MP3 even though data resolution cannot be changed there.
You really need to preferably download the Qobuz desktop player to your computer - you won’t find any of this on the Qobuz website which is basically a sales tool. When you have the desktop player you open your account by clicking your identity in the top right corner. You will find all sorts of options there including emptying and resizing the cache ( which will still fill even if you only use Mosaic as a play control).
. Yes I had seemingly identical problems over here back at the turn of the century.
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