Tidal is good - but not lossless (??)

[Dave2002]

Having managed now to get onto Tidal and being quite pleased with the results, I thought a bit harder about the streaming process.
It seemed unlikely to me that unless the bandwidth requirements would be really large and actually satisfied that the methods used for streaming and data reconstruction would in fact be lossless.

This was of course just a suspicion, but it seems that other people have also been suspicious of this.

See https://hackaday.com/2021/04/21/myth...it-measure-up/

I'm guessing that similar comments could be made about Qobuz and other streaming services. Probably a lot better than mp3 or obviouslsy lossy encoders, but maybe not completely lossless either.

[Beresford]

Dave: Very interesting. It looks like MQA, or at least Tidal's implementation of MQA, together with the "unfolding" implementation in any compatible DAC, is problematic. Lack of transparency, together with aggressive marketing, seems to have misled the public. (Somewhat similarly to politics in USA and UK over the last few years.)

Does Qobuz use MQA? I thought the High Def version was lossless.

[Dave2002]

Does Qobuz use MQA? I thought the High Def version was lossless.

I can't answer your question as I don't know enough about Qobuz or other so-called "hi-res" streaming services.

I have now watched the video, which seems genuine, and the comments made within it suggest a very strong whiff of Snake Oil in the MQA eco system.
My subjective experience of Tidal so far is that it is better than poor quality MP3, but I still suspect that it does not perform as well as a good quality CD on a good player.

The video in that article does nothing to discourage me from that view, and indeed I may follow the recommendation to cancel my subscription within the time limit.

If Qobuz use FLAC or some other open source lossless encoding method, then it should be possible to verify whether Qobuz is really providing a high quality "hi-res" service.
Whether this is subjectively a good thing or not (given that many people can't really hear over15 kHz anyway, and many don't "know" the difference between good and high quality sound, is open to question.
However, systems which allow at least part of their processess to be independently verified are more honest than ones which don't, and ask you to "hear the improvements....." and charge you extra for that.

[jayne lee wilson]

Dave: Very interesting. It looks like MQA, or at least Tidal's implementation of MQA, together with the "unfolding" implementation in any compatible DAC, is problematic. Lack of transparency, together with aggressive marketing, seems to have misled the public. (Somewhat similarly to politics in USA and UK over the last few years.)

Does Qobuz use MQA? I thought the High Def version was lossless.

First: Qobuz does not offer MQA. I've never bothered with it myself.

Don't confuse "hi-def" with "lossless".
Lossless means CD-quality, ie.16/44.1.
High Resolution means either 24/48, 24/96 or 24/192. "Hi-Res".

The difference between lossless and 24-bit is usually quite audible, depending on the individual characteristics of the recording of course. I've made many comparisons between Qobuz streams and CD/SACD and there is no doubt that, subjectively, the Qobuz streams are usually living up to their categorisation.

All the same, my disc replay does sound different to the streams, simply because of processing differences in the discplayers and the media players (Audirvana+ here). But the players/transports/dac I use are sophisticated in their processing, offering a lot of choice in replay (I usually replay CD through the DSD (SACD-type) processing) and their extra sonic tangibility is entirely due to the design itself. Spend more on streaming devices, you would probably achieve a sound closer to the physical disc replay. It is all very contextual to the system.

Whe I used to measure 24/96 downloads in JRiver (from Qobuz, eclassical etc) I usually found them to be genuine. Occasionally you might come across a claimed "24/96" file which was in fact an upsampled lossless one, as the excellent HiFiNews analyses have been revealing in its download reviews for some years now.

[Bryn]

First: Qobuz does not offer MQA. I've never bothered with it myself.

Don't confuse "hi-def" with "lossless".
Lossless means CD-quality, ie.16/44.1.
High Resolution means either 24/48, 24/96 or 24/192. "Hi-Res".

The difference between lossless and 24-bit is usually quite audible, depending on the individual characteristics of the recording of course. I've made many comparisons between Qobuz streams and CD/SACD and there is no doubt that, subjectively, the Qobuz streams are usually living up to their categorisation.

All the same, my disc replay does sound different to the streams, simply because of processing differences in the discplayers and the media players (Audirvana+ here). But the players/transports/dac I use are sophisticated in their processing, offering a lot of choice in replay (I usually replay CD through the DSD (SACD-type) processing) and their extra sonic tangibility is entirely due to the design itself. Spend more on streaming devices, you would probably achieve a sound closer to the physical disc replay. It is all very contextual to the system.

Whe I used to measure 24/96 downloads in JRiver (from Qobuz, eclassical etc) I usually found them to be genuine. Occasionally you might come across a claimed "24/96" file which was in fact an upsampled lossless one, as the excellent HiFiNews analyses has been revealing in its download reviews for some years now.

Sorry to be picky but "Lossless" does not necessarily refer only to CD-rate. I use FLAC to data-compress 48/24 WAVs frequently, as does QUOBZ. Some QOBUZ "Hi-Res" are as low as 44.1/24.

To complicat4e matters further, there are many 24-bit lossy compressed files out there, often found on music DVDs, i.e. 24-bit DTS. Mode Records often label the audio on their CDs as 96/24, which may be the source material but it's not what you get from the CD. That is 44.1/16 and likely to be dithered and suitably artefact-filtered resampled from the higher resolution source.

[cloughie]

Saw this heading - thought it might be about green energy!

[Dave2002]

One concern might be that even if the comments made about audio quality in the link in msg 1 are correct, they may be related to aspects of operation which are not so significant for many people.
It is possible to mix in considerable amounts of noise into a signal without apparently completely ruining the perceived sound. One effect [bit speculative] might be a perceptual change in dynamic range.

It may be that there is a loss in quality in Tidal if MQA is a feature, but that it is considered relatively small and most people would rather have a service with a very wide catalogue of almost instantly available music than a verified and guaranteed higher sound quality service with more limited offerings.

There may be a "whiff of snake oil" - but it might be offset by other benefits.

Depends what one's priorities are for sound reproduction I guess. The questions raised in the video about transparency and honesty and also value for money may be important to some - but others may really not care.

[AuntDaisy]

Saw this heading - thought it might be about green energy!

Ditto.