Tidal and MQA set out to bring hi-res to the masses
In the era of digital music, sound quality has often been overlooked in favour of convenience. Tidal Masters could be a best-of-both-worlds solution
In the tech industry, convenience and sound quality don’t always see eye to eye – as shown by accessible and affordable streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music making average sound quality popular again.
‘Premium’ services such as Tidal and Qobuz have offered Cd-quality streams, but the best-of-both-worlds aspiration surely lies with hi-res audio streaming.
It has been two years since we first got wind of Tidal working with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) technology to deliver hi-res audio streaming, and more than a year since we first heard the promising consequence at CES 2016.
Changes in Tidal’s administration delayed its arrival, but at CES 2017 Tidal launched ‘Tidal Masters’: hi-res MQA streams, available to subscribers to its £20 per month Hifi package.
What is it?
You’ve probably heard of Tidal, a music streaming service that’s separated itself from mainstream moguls Spotify and Apple Music by offering Cd-quality streams at a premium subscription price.
MQA, launched by Meridian in 2014 but now a separate company, is a codec technology that packages studio quality music files into a size that’s easier to stream and download, without needing huge amounts of bandwidth and avoiding the sonic sacrifices of compression.
Tidal says MQA allows it to deliver songs exactly how they were recorded in the studio – regardless of resolution size.
How can you get it?
As well as a Tidal Hifi membership, you’ll need to download the Tidal desktop app for PC or Mac. While Tidal also has a web player and IOS and Android app versions, Tidal Masters isn’t yet available on those platforms.
Alternatively, you can listen via the Mqa-ready Bluesound Node 2 streamer, which connects directly to Tidal Masters files via the Bluesound app, negating the need for a desktop Tidal app.
Before you jump in, some boxes need ticking to make sure you’re getting the Masters in all their MQA glory. In Tidal’s settings, ‘Hifi/master’ quality must be selected under ‘Streaming’.
Listening through computer or laptop speakers, via a 3.5mm headphone output or through a connected DAC gives the Tidal desktop app the reins over MQA’S core decoding. This has an output limited to 24-bit/96khz. In other words, even if you’re streaming a 192khz file, it will be unpackaged only to 96khz.
The benefit of kit with built-in MQA decoders, such as the Audirvana Plus 3 computer software or Meridian’s Explorer DAC 2 (see p10), is all decoding is done by the hardware (bypassing the app altogether), which can unpackage the entire MQA file for playback in its original resolution. For devices to be given the green light, you must select the ‘Passthrough MQA’ and ‘Exclusive Mode’ boxes in Tidal’s sound output settings.
Catalogue
According to the streaming service, Tidal Masters will typically be 24-bit/96khz, as opposed to the 16-bit/44.1khz (Cd-quality) streams on the hi-fi tier.
There are 30,000 tracks available in the codec. However, just over 400 albums are discoverable in the Tidal desktop app, found in the album tab under ‘What’s New’ and labelled ‘Masters’. While there are new albums available, including Beyonce’s Lemonade and Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, plus albums from lesser-known bands such as The Modern Jazz Quartet, the majority are back catalogues of renowned artists, from Coldplay and Pink Floyd to Muse and David Bowie.
Other Masters are buried within Tidal’s 40m+ database of tracks. Nothing on the library interface flags them up, and they aren’t searchable in the search bar. You’ll only know if a track is MQA when ‘Master’ appears in the playback bar.
A file’s resolution remains a mystery unless you own compatible MQA hardware like the Meridian Explorer DAC 2, which lights up to show whether a track has a sampling rate of 88khz, 96khz, 176khz or 192khz.
In an ideal world you wouldn’t need an Mqa-enabled DAC for this, or have to search blindly for Masters in the service, but it’s early days and we expect it will mature with greater functionality.
Sound quality
We try it out with an Apple Macbook Air, a £400 Chord Mojo DAC (as well as a Meridian Explorer DAC 2), and a pair of Grado SR325E over-ears (£280), and the Master tracks clearly offer the newfound streaming audiophile a sonic upgrade to the ‘hi-fi’ (ie. non-mqa, Cd-quality) ones.
We play a 2015 remaster of The Velvet Underground’s Sweet Jane (a 176khz or 192khz file according to the Meridian). Compared with the CD quality version, the Master makes more sense of the guitar lines. It’s better organised, given more space and expression, and can pluck out each intertwining melody, making it sound a lot less like a teenage band’s first practice.
As Reed utters “I’m in a rock and roll band”, it confidently clings onto the charismatic delivery of the vocal. The strummed acoustic chords that sandwich it carry greater tangibility, while cymbals can be heard more clearly underneath the fervor.
Just as you wouldn’t make the most of a 4K Blu-ray through a poor-performing telly, the sonic advantages of Tidal Masters won’t be as apparent through a budget pair of in-ears plugged into a laptop’s output, so investing in a good DAC and headphones is necessary.
Verdict
Tidal and MQA set out to bring hi-res streaming to the masses, and despite taking a while to get out of the gate, their partnership has paid dividends. Further patience is warranted as we wait not only for support from key manufacturers for more hardware choices, but also other streaming services to get onboard. As Tidal settles to its MQA adoption, we hope interface developments will follow.
But for now, the venture has successfully laid down solid foundations from which the MQA and hi-res streaming experience can only evolve.