Tidal now labels its HD files MAX sted of MASTERS. Where's MQA gone?

[Michou]

Tidal removed all MQA labelling from Android app, now called MAX instead.
First two screenshots are from 10 minutes ago while the third last one is same contents as seen yesterday.

 

[Jimbob54]

Not in the UK. Still says "master"

 

[Jimbob54]

And indeed still says mqa in the blurb about their top tier service. Though they said some time ago, around the time mqa filed for bankruptcy protection, that they were moving away from mqa.

 

[JSmith]

Tidal's new hi-res FLAC option couldn't be more annoying | Digital Trends

Adding hi-res FLAC to Tidal is something audiophiles have wanted for years. But now that it's here, they're not going to be happy.

www.digitaltrends.com

It’s this HiFi Plus tier that has undergone a renovation. The Master designation is now a thing of the past. It’s been replaced with “Max,” a move that I’m guessing is an effort to distance the HiFi Plus tier from its previous reliance on MQA...

JSmith

 

[Jimbob54]

(Not that any of this bothers me. I use the cheaper 16/44,1 Hifi tier because its more than good enough)

 

[delta76]

Tidal removed all MQA labelling from Android app, now called MAX instead.

MQA declared bankrupt, Tidal refused to buy them out. now they probably do not want to associated themselves with MQA/Master anymore

 

[Geert]

Where's MQA gone?

Gone bankrupt.

 

[boxerfan88]

Good riddance to bad rubbish…

 

[PierreV]

Not in the UK. Still says "master" View attachment 303306

An album choice fitting the circumstances!

 

[dfuller]

Tidal removed all MQA labelling from Android app, now called MAX instead.
First two screenshots are from 10 minutes ago while the third last one is same contents as seen yesterday.

Yes, I saw this on desktop yesterday. I think they're phasing out MQA in favor of higher sample rate flac.

 

[Matias]

Should have been FLAC up to 24/192 right from the start anyway...

 

[Esss]

OP - you may have missed all the rage about Tidal moving to FLAC. Started (beta) with iOS last month, then this month started with Android, today I just checked, Windows Desktop app also updated to FLAC. However - not all titles have been replaced, you will still see MQA for songs that are not yet replaced with FLAC version. Oddly, I have seen posts of people complaining about this. Humans are very puzzling. There are also untested theories that Tidal is converting MQA back to FLAC - nobody has provided any proof of this or shown how they arrived at this. I am enjoying this change very much. But I notice that it is a big job, they have not done BluOS just yet, they have not done the app embedded in MusiCast (I am using Yamaha) and UAPP is still stuck in MQA. But this is very early stages of the rollout.

 

[Jimbob54]

OP - you may have missed all the rage about Tidal moving to FLAC. Started (beta) with iOS last month, then this month started with Android, today I just checked, Windows Desktop app also updated to FLAC. However - not all titles have been replaced, you will still see MQA for songs that are not yet replaced with FLAC version. Oddly, I have seen posts of people complaining about this. Humans are very puzzling. There are also untested theories that Tidal is converting MQA back to FLAC - nobody has provided any proof of this or shown how they arrived at this. I am enjoying this change very much. But I notice that it is a big job, they have not done BluOS just yet, they have not done the app embedded in MusiCast (I am using Yamaha) and UAPP is still stuck in MQA. But this is very early stages of the rollout.

The issue isn't the app updates per platform . It's the files. The labels used in different platforms dont matter. Likely you will be served a mixture of formats inc mqa in all platforms for the foreseeable. See @JSmith post no 4.

Edit. Posts later on suggest the platform is important too. Seem to be 2 factors in play. One is the ability of the platform /app to serve "Max" files, the other is the continued existence of mqa files on the servers. Would appear that once the platform /app is max enabled, new hi res flac will be served in preference over the mqa version where both exist.

 

[arshinov101]

Tidal under windows online - D90SE no "MQA" and signed "PCM 96 kHz". But in GUI album link says MQA and downloaded files sended to D90SE signed "MQA"

 

[SSS]

Good news that MQA will be history. Did not understand why a data reduced music file is master quality? And I think streaming services should deliver original files like wav or flac where the music stays as it is.

 

[TonyJZX]

i'm not going to gloat over this

BUT the way I ultimately think of Bob Stuart's grand experiment is that many many many companies with much much much more money and technology have tried it on with tech that was actually better than the 'accepted standard' and they too failed.

Why? for every obvious reason you know about. You know about SACD already.

MQA even if it worked, was always bound to fail.

 

[Esss]

The issue isn't the app updates per platform . It's the files. The labels used in different platforms dont matter. Likely you will be served a mixture of formats inc mqa in all platforms for the foreseeable. See @JSmith post no 4.

Post No 4 is a link to an article of someone who joined beta testing then complains about bugs. But I would agree that Tidal will offer both until all MQA are converted to FLAC. But the app right now doesn't tell the listener which file is playing - for that you need an external DAC. Perhaps by the time it comes out of beta it would have fixed all these niggles.

 

[Esss]

I have done a bit of fiddling - using HDMI to the Yamaha AVR and exclusive mode on Windows:

Max (FLAC) output as measured by the AVR - 192kHz - very nice for those with no DACs.
Max (MQA) output as measured by AVR - 96kHz.

When the transition is complete - it would be interesting to test apps like Audirvana and Bubble UPnP and see if one can DLNA hires stream directly to AVR (or your favourite end oint).

 

[iLoveCats]

I'm somewhat invested in MQA as I have equipment and the subscription for it but I'm not overly sad because I have forced Tidal upon myself for several years just to be able to play MQA files. Now I'm free to go look around at other services again.

 

[Galliardist]

I rejoined to check, and plugged in my old Dragonfly to get a view.

Some brand new releases come up as standard or high resolution (I can't tell exactly as the thing only has a light indicator: it's mostly green for 44.1 even with MAX in the new Windows client). A lot of older albums come up as MAX but are clearly still MQA, for example Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and I get the purple MQA light. Presumably Tidal doesn't have the Qobuz facility to supply different maximum rates according to the DAC in use,.

I suspect that MQA will be there for quite a while yet, not least because Tidal will not have kept non-MQA versions of a lot of albums, particularly the ones submitted as MQA via the third party services they used for adding files from independent labels and private publishers. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with that. If they rely on customers to submit new files, it may take forever...