Tidal adds hi-res audio streams with 'Tidal Masters' (with MQA)

Discussion in 'General Audio Discussion' started by weldp, Jan 5, 2017.

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  1. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    You could write, and install, a driver-level virtual-sound-card (or, of course, use an existing one) that'd capture the audio-data stream as it was delivered by the player to the audio-subsystem. This would enable the capture of the raw, unprocessed, MQA-encoded file as well as the first-level unfolded software-decoded MQA content (by alternately enabling/disabling software-MQA decoding in your player).

    Drivers and software are not permitted to implement more than the first level of unfolding, so anything beyond that remains in the domain of MQA enabled DACs.

    While the "full" resolution MQA-encoded content is only available to MQA-compliant DACs, the first-level of unfolded digital data is available for digital output from a software decoder (generally 24/96). The TIDAL client does this today if you disable "Passthrough MQA" (yes, inverted logic). Doing so enables software MQA decoding for the first-unfold and you'll get high-resolution output you can pipe straight to your DAC.

    What isn't allowed for digital output is full-unfolding, to get the highest resolution data available in the file.
     
  2. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    When I finish my portable DAC/amp comparison write-up (very close, even if it's a couple of weeks later than I panned now), I'll write-up what I've found in doing detailed comparisons between the various MQA files available at 2L and their non-MQA high-resolution counterparts.

    While not necessarily musically interesting, these are currently the best available sources (that I'm aware of) that offer multiple high-resolution formats/resolutions, including MQA encoded, that all derive from an identical master file* (all but two of which are DXD masters). This permits back-to-back, side-by-side, comparison of multiple formats include un-decoded, software-decoded and fully-decoded MQA files vs. both the high-resolution originals, RedBook and various high-resolution PCM/DSD formats.

    --

    *Or so it is claimed - not that I have any basis for, or doubt of, said claim.
     
  3. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    If that's in any way technically accurate, it's so damning- making MQA less bandwidth-efficient than just streaming FLAC, as well as worse quality. Even if that weren't true, it was giving me a very evil anti-consumer vibe. If it is, then.. sheesh, why would you even?
     
  4. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

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    Interesting article from John Saiu. I remember when I read an article from one of the Schiit designers, don't remember which one of the two..... but he pointed out that these new formats are just a waste to design for. They die out with lack of content, and do they really sound that much better than Redbook or FLAC? I buy CDs from Amazon and convert to FLAC on my workstation computer. Then I put FLAC onto multiple laptops. For livingroom listening (my 2 channel system) I use a 12" Acer Tablet (Surface 4 clone) running Win10 and the Groove software that comes with Win10. Music is stored on a SDHC 64GB card. When I run out of room on that I have a USB-C 64GB stick to go into the tablet. It barely sticks out, pretty cool. This setup should allow (just an estimate) over 160 albums. Tablet has a kickstand (just like the Surface 4) and it sits to the right of me on a little table. Just hit the touchscreen and choose songs or playlists. Having a CD player into your livingroom system seems obsolete now. I only paid $439 for my Acer Stylus Pro 12 tablet with keyboard that is better than the Microsoft Surface. It has QHD IPS screen with IPad like color. SSD, no fans,water cooled inside. Anyway the Acer is very fast, cheap as sheet, and replaces the CD player in the livingroom when you decide to get an external DAC. But if you have a car with a CD player.... then the CDs that you bought have a use after FLACing. I have so much better sound in the car stereo with the CD over my IPods. Night and day due to the higher resolution. The newer cars are taking out the CD players. What fools. So the new generation is all about convenience..... but buying a disc still is more fun that getting some files. The fools. Hopefully CD will never die. Maybe I'm wrong about having a CD transport in the livingroom. Maybe not.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
  5. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Why not store your FLACs on a cheap NAS? It's way more efficient, cheaper and more sustainable. You can fit Terabytes on there, and play from low-maintenance networked endpoints wherever you like, controlled from any device. "I put FLAC onto multiple laptops and for livingroom listening" isn't really the best way to go about it.

    Spend less money and less power, and have all your music accessible to everything on your network all the time :)

    Also, if you're plugging a laptop directly into your DAC, it probably doesn't sound as good as it could.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2017
  6. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    Do we have a thread on this? Some quick'n'dirty instructions would be useful for many, I believe. Maybe even in conjunction with setting up an RPi & Digi+ Pro end-point...
     
  7. fishski13

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    "High-Rez audio" like MQA are like sausages, it's better not to see being them made. I'd rather have an uber open source DSP suite so I can squeeze out my own sausage to suit my own needs. Give me kick ass Red Book and let me be the cook.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
  8. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I don't think we do. I've probably posted enough on the topic that interested parties could piece together what they needed to do, but I never brought it all together- partly because I hadn't end-to-end tested a build like that using cheap modern parts.

    I did it this week, oddly, with an RPI 3, Modi Multibit, Digi+ Pro and an inexpensive Synology NAS. I'm going to add one of those little iFi low-noise wall warts to it, just into the Pi. I'm pretty sure that powering the Pi2 design HAT externally with a cheap industrial LPS and letting that power the Pi would mean even lower noise- but that is possibly a little too close to involved for non-nerds who'd normallly gravitate to an off-the-shelf solution, and find that soldering makes them nervous.

    I'm listening to it right now, actually, and while my PC's optical out is far better than I had any right to expect, things do sound really nice through the Pi endpoint. Hard to put my finger on it, but imaging/staging seems crisper, instrument separation more distinct and timbre more pronounced. Stinky old Front242 albums really never sounded better.

    Once I add the iFi PSU to it, and check that there are no gotchas, that's probably reasonably due dilligence.

    The only thing that worries me a bit is whether you would need to explain some basic networking to people- you need to know enough to find the IP address of your Pi on the network (a couple of times, if you're using Wifi) and maybe your NAS. The first one would be doable to explain, the second one has a few too many variables to give universal instructions, depending on what people are using.

    Essentially, we could totally have a guide explaining how it all goes together, as long as we assume thst people are comfortable enough with stuff like setting up and finding their NAS on the network. It'd be a shame to draw people in who really are allergic to computer tinkering, though, as it'd probably frustrate them and ruin their fun, so it'd need to be pitched correctly. Everything required is really straightforward (especially if you use an music-centric distro)- but it'd suck to talk people into grabbing a bunch of kit that they'd never get working.

    We have a lot of really interesting members from wildly differing backgrounds. Maybe someone who spent 40 years being a surgeon isn't a computer nerd and just wants to listen to good music- and that's the sort of person I don't want to lead into the Fire Swamp. Even though they're easily clever enough to do it all, it might not be an enjoyable experience due to the assumed knowledge thing.

    Does that make sense? I'd be up for having a go at writing one, but I'm still slightly agonising at how much detail to go into, to fill in peripheral background knowledge.

    Amen to quite a lot of that. I wince when I see people buying cheap and nasty gear that promises "high res" audio, thinking that's what will give them amazing sound, when they're nowhere near reproducing Red Book properly (which already has slightly more dynamic range than human hearing, and a Nyquist frequency well above what most of us can hear).

    Leaving aside the arguments for and against hi-res audio (which are a whole 'nother rabbit hole- and some people do find it makes a difference), a lot more people need to concentrate on getting audio reproduction in general to a higher level. When they're not even hearing anywhere near all of the detail and nuance that Redbook offers in their chain, putting an eleventy billion KHz/high bit depth Saber in there isn't going to magically upgrade everything else. This is true whether or not you're a high res believer.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
  9. DigMe

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    I just signed up for the free 180 days of Tidal. I don't have an MQA compatible DAC and don't care a bit about it but what does "Master" mean to those who don't do MQA? Anything at all? I can't find this setting that has been mentioned to turn on or off MQA pass through. I did notice that the "Master" version of The Cars eponymous album sounded really good but don't know if it would be different if it wasn't "master" version.
     
  10. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    180? I only see 30 offered. What am I missing here?
     
  11. Cos

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    Maybe the offer expired / reached their predetermined limit. I could only find the 30 days trial and no place to introduce the coupon code.
     
  12. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

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    @Kattefjaes
    Sorry you missed out on the 180. Looks like it wasn't offered for very long. I'm happy I got it, but I like the sound of my FLAC rips better. I went to settings in Tidal and setup that properly. Compared same exact song and found my file to sound better, hands down. No sure what Tidal does with software, but it is not exactly the same as a Redbook rip.

    So you are saying that Optical input to the Modi Multibit is way better than USB. I would think that would be true. So I looked at the Rasberry Pi3 solution you're using. Interesting.

    So how much better are we talking sound quality? I have always thought of this but it would require me to have a PC in my livingroom with a sound card. Then the fan sound. The rasberry seems to fix this, but what software and screen can you have sitting next to you in your easy chair to play songs? Thanks.
     
  13. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    Are you sure that you're comparing the same version? Unless we're talking about different software sounding different (which I do think is the case), Tidal should sound the same. You can actually record the Tidal audio stream and it'll be identical to the CD. Of course you can play that back with better sounding software.
     
  14. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I store the FLACs on a little NAS, on my network. That can be in any room you like. The Pi 3 feeds the Modi Multibit over coax, using a Digi+ Pro. I usually control it via MPDroid on Android. The Pi has a cheap Wifi dongle in it*.

    The way it works is that I made a read-only share on my NAS, exporting all my FLACs. The Pi mounts that share (a CIFS/Samba Windows-style share) as a drive over the network. The Pi is running various crazy endpoint stuff- it works as:
    • UnPnP renderer
    • Squeezebox
    • Airplay target
    • MPD target
    So you can drive it pretty much any way you want. I generally keep the Squeebox and Airplay stuff turned off, as I rarely use them. Generally I use MPD, which is a headless music player that supports network remote control. MPDroid is a pretty good free remote for it.

    However, as you can see, there's a load of ways you can drive it. Heck, you could use JRiver on a laptop, which is pointed at the FLAC drive on the NAS, and plays out to the Pi via UnPnP**

    Essentially, there's a NAS on your network, an extra small box next to the Modi Multibit, you keep your tablet by your comfy chair, and you're done.

    The easiest way to set all of this up is to use one of the custom audio-centric Linux distributions. I am using Moode Audio for this, as it supports the Digi+ Pro out of the box. I was looking for something easy, so that if I do eventually write a guide, I don't have to talk people through awkward manual config tasks. It's super-easy to install, and reasonably easy to configure. Once you get it running, you do the rest of the setup via a web interface.

    There are off-the-shelf solutions that cost more, but work out of the box, too- an Auralic Ares Mini would cost about 5x the price of the Pi-based solution, and sound similar, but be more convenient. I don't know how allergic you are to tinkering with computers, so wouldn't want to guess if this is a consideration for you or not. I wouldn't necessarily recommend plunging in with relatively expensive sources with a cheap DAC, mind you. The Pi-based solution cost me about £100- not including a slightly fancy PSU which I ordered later.

    Two things are a given, though- it's better to store your FLACs on a NAS hidden away somewhere on your network- one unit that's easy to maintain and back up. Secondly, feeding your DAC over a good SPDIF connection sounds better than even clean USB. SPDIF, both optical and coaxial, can suffer from jitter, so the quality of the output is a factor. Coaxial is often a bit better than optical, if you can swing it, but obviously, it's a direct electrical connection, so you want a source end that isn't too noisy.

    This is all very much in the category of "tweaks", though. Don't worry if you can't be bothered, or it sounds too annoying. They give you a "last few percent" improvement to the sound, and possibly a significant upgrade to convenience and comfort. The world won't end if you don't do them- and if you're happy with what you have now and can't be bothered, don't sweat it.






    * Yeah, the Pi 3 has onboard Wifi, but it didn't seem to be playing ball for some reason. I had a stick kicking about, which also came with a little dock, which gives you some scope for positioning to improve Wifi reception, too. It works fine, so I'm not sweating it.



    ** This works really well, but with a tiny gotcha. By default, JRiver transcodes it to MP3 by default for this. Go into options/media network/add or configure DLNA servers. Then go down to audio, and set format to "Original", and it won't dick about with it at all.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
  15. DigMe

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    Someone posted it in the deals thread here. New customers only (I just used a different email from my past membership) if you use the code Sprint. Must be a promo related to sprint recently buying a stake.
     
  16. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

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    @Serious
    I'm using Exact Audio Copy to rip my CDs and using on Win10 the Groove Music program that comes with Win10 to listen to my FLAC files. The Groove Music interface is great with my QHD 12" tablet. It scales properly for touch interface and spits out a great presentation of artist.

    The Tidal is not scaling as well for touch, but acceptable. I notice a difference. It has to be the playback software of the Tidal. I did it with a few artists. I have the settings in Tidal setup properly for Modi Multibit. I think it is possible that playback software can have a possible difference on sound of tracks. I didn't think that before, but now I do. I'm going to do more listening, and see what gives. But I think my system is transparent enough to resolve detail that you would notice is different.
     
  17. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

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    @Serious
    Tested Tidal on my Asus Xonar D1 sound card. It's a good sounding card with accurate Altec Lansing speakers. I can tell the difference in recordings right away with Foobar2000 ripped FLAC from my CDs and Tidal FLAC files of the same song. My FLACs are way more resolute.
     
  18. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

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    @Kattefjaes
    Thank you for the serious write-up. I have an Asus Xonar D2 sound card that I bought for a new build of Win10. If coax is the best way to send to Modi Multibit..... Would the Asus sound card be better than using the builtin motherboard coax. I would be using an Asus z270 motherboard with the new Kaby Lake chip. The reason I ask this is that I want to keep the Win10 interface in my setup at my easy chair... this way I can do computing things with it while listening. Once again thanks for all that great info,
     
  19. wormcycle

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    I have Pi 3 in almost the same setup with NAS and Modi Multibit and it works very well. I wonder what you mean by "good SPDIF connection"? Is it just about the cable or there is more to it?
     
  20. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    While a decent cable, no longer than necessary and nicely-made, is a good thing.. no, I was thinking more about the source end not being electrically noisy and equally crucially clocked as well as possible, Both of those are reasonably achievable with the better Pi HATs, and there's a tiny bit more improvement available with power shenanigans.

    That said, the improvements are sometimes quite subtle, and I'm not sure that I'd pick them out with high reliability in a blind ABX. However, being able to switch my PC off, and not have its fans going? Joy.
     

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