insider9 said:
Leeps said:
You may want to check this out. It is a little heavy going in places, but does help answer some of the earlier questions we have raised.
Very informative video. If I understand it correctly decoding can be done at software level giving full benefit of format. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, but only if that decoding is the last digital element in the chain, which brings me back to my earlier point, that you're not going to want to listen to hi-res MQA music through your laptop speakers. It's fine if the software is MQA compatible, as is the desktop Tidal app itself now, but if you then send that same signal on digitally to a non-MQA DAC before it hits your amp & speakers, then you'll still not be gaining the benefit of MQA.
So suddenly choices are becoming much more limited. But as always in these cases it's about supply and demand. Now Tidal has actually put its money where it's mouth has been for the last 12 months and actually released a significant volume of MQA albums, although I appreciate Tidal hasn't got the clout of Spotify or the marketing welly of Apple Music, it may just be significant enough a development for a whole host of other manufacturers who've already adopted Tidal (like Naim, Cyrus, Oppo and a whole host of AV receiver manufacturers) to take that next step and make their equipment MQA compatible.
I'm well out of my technical comfort zone now, but it would be interesting to know if the likes of Naim's Uniti range, which sold well and is native Tidal-compatible, could have an MQA software update, or whether MQA would only be something they could introduce on new hardware. I can't think of any obvious reason why such an update couldn't be made to their streamers, seeing they're just specialised low-noise computers anyway.