Tidal Masters

[chrisrock]

Has anyone much experience of listening to the masters collection on Tidal? is it much of an improvement over the CD quality (to your ears)?

 

[insider9]

I have been listening since Friday after it was announced. My pc is connected to a non-mqa dac so I'm not getting the full benefit as apparently it doesn't unfold the whole file. Irrespective of that it sounds better to my ears than CD. Some albums more so than others.

I'm currently considering getting an MQA dac or a new streamer (Meridian Explorer2 or Bluesound Node 2). It is rather annoyoing as only had Yamaha for 3 or so months. But once more albums are made available I won't hesitate to pull the trigger.

 

[chrisrock]

I only started listening today. I wish you that some albums sound better than other, although the difference in quality from th normal cd quality stream isn't massive (to me).

I wasn't quite sure if the Tidal desktop app decoded the MQA if using a none MQA dac/streamer. I take it that is not the case?

 

[insider9]

It does decode partially. It does the first unfold giving you 24/96. To play the whole 24/192 you'd need an mqa dac.

Some albums sound better than others, some are close to CD and others much better. Biggest improvements are on albums that haven't been that well recorded in the first place. Steely Dan doesn't sound that much better and not that it should

 

[nick8858]

If its a good recording 16 bit CD quality if fine, I've tried hi res and can't tell the difference (except the price tag). If its a rubbish recording you can have as many bits as you want and it'll still sound rubbish. The whole hi res industry has popped up all of a sudden to fleece listeners. Some of the best recordings are 50's 60's on analogue tape. Many modern recording engineers simply can't hold a candle to these guys who had a superb piece of measuring equipment - ears. Sadly many of todays engineers spend too much time in front of computer

 

[Infiniteloop]

Sadly, most modern music is listened to via cheap earphones, laptop speakers and mobile phones so people expect the sound to be all screechy treble and no bass. Quite often whoever the vocalist is has had their voice so processed that it is completely unnatural.

Music is therefore mastered and compressed to reflect this. However, the resurgence of vinyl offers a glimmer of hope.

 

[marou]

I'm currently considering getting an MQA dac or a new streamer (Meridian Explorer2 or Bluesound Node 2). It is rather annoyoing as only had Yamaha for 3 or so months. But once more albums are made available I won't hesitate to pull the trigger.

The Explorer is only £129 from Audioaffair and works very well with the Yamaha

 

[insider9]

I'm currently considering getting an MQA dac or a new streamer (Meridian Explorer2 or Bluesound Node 2). It is rather annoyoing as only had Yamaha for 3 or so months. But once more albums are made available I won't hesitate to pull the trigger.

The Explorer is only £129 from Audioaffair and works very well with the Yamaha

Yes, the issue is that controlling playback from desktop PC isn't as convenient. Meridian Explorer 2 is only an option for me once and if Tidal allows for streaming MQA to mobile devices. That's assuming that Meridian will support Android or iOS MQA playback.

Also don't quite understand your point of Explorer 2 working well with Yamaha... Yamaha doesn't output digital via USB. Could you clarify what you mean?

 

[marou]

MacMini > Roon > usb > Explorer > Yamaha aux

 

[insider9]

MacMini > Roon > usb > Explorer > Yamaha aux

Ok, I see. Looks like that's the piece of the puzzle I was missing.

How do you find Roon? Is it worth it?

 

[marou]

Not cheap but definitely worth it - integrates your own library with Tidal or Quobuz (and Sonos) with a very good gui and a lot else besides.