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There’s more to MQA than reduced file size. With Qobuz, I frequently experience dropouts at this location when playing hi-rez music. Often, the actual speed is 2Mbps or lower.

#AUDIRVANA PLUS 3 TIDAL 3 MONTHS DOWNLOAD#

At our vacation home in a small beach town on Lake Huron, the fastest Internet service available to us has a rated download speed of 6Mpbs. In our home in Toronto, Canada, the download speed is typically over 80Mbps. That’s true for people in urban centers, but rural residents aren’t so fortunate. When played through an MQA-compatible system, high-resolution audio is “unfolded” and passed on to the DAC.Ĭritics of MQA question the need for reduced file size, citing the availability of fast broadband Internet service. MQA packs high-resolution audio into a file about 50% larger than a lossless standard-resolution file, using a process MQA poetically terms “musical origami.” The limited amount of energy in higher frequency bands (above 22.05 or 24kHz) is “folded” into the lowest bits of a 24-bit/44.1kHz or 24/48 file. Originally developed by UK-based Meridian Audio and announced in 2014, MQA was subsequently spun off as a separate company. There are other important issues: the music available on each service, and those services’ user interfaces. But Tidal’s use of MQA and Qobuz’s use of standard FLAC have many other implications, notably the equipment required to get the most out of each service. The MQA debate can’t be avoided, because sound quality is one factor that listeners must consider when choosing between Tidal and Qobuz. This behavior has implications far beyond audio: It poisons public discourse throughout the world. Even so, I’m repulsed by the ad hominem slurs and character assassinations that have marked the debate. Granted, the combatants aren’t impaling their enemies or burning them alive, as happened in Europe’s wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries. Maybe that’s because so much of the fighting now takes place on social media and Internet forums. non-MQA is the latest of audio’s wars of religion, and one of the most bitterly fought. Playing the same recordings, does one of these services sound better than the other? Do Tidal and Qobuz sound different at all? Comparing the sound quality of the two services can help shed light on the MQA debate. Tidal uses MQA for its high-resolution Masters tier Qobuz uses the nonproprietary FLAC format. Qobuz’s arrival in the New World promises to stoke one of audio’s hottest controversies: the merits of Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology. But the current situation is unusually fluid.

#AUDIRVANA PLUS 3 TIDAL 3 MONTHS SOFTWARE#

Of course, streaming services are always in flux - in terms of the content offered, the software and user experience, and which devices are compatible with which services. Rumors have circulated for months that Tidal would soon issue apps permitting hi-rez playback on mobile devices, but as I put this piece to bed that had yet to happen. That service has desktop and mobile apps, but with a couple of exceptions, Tidal’s mobile apps don’t yet support hi-rez playback. Because Qobuz must negotiate licensing agreements with rights holders for each region in which it offers its service, the eventual selection of music available on Qobuz US might well differ from what I’ve been enjoying, as might the software and the user interface. My demo account of Qobuz was for the European version. However, as I completed this feature in late October, the North American version of Qobuz was still a work in progress. I’ve had ample opportunity to compare the two services. I’ve had a demo account of Qobuz since last January, and have been listening to Tidal’s Masters tier since its launch, in January 2017. In late September, David Solomon, Qobuz’s chief evangelist for hi-rez music, told me that that date had slipped, and that Qobuz would announce its North American launch date “certainly in the last quarter” of 2018.

That launch was supposed to happen at the 2018 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, in October.

The US would come first, with Canada following a few months later.

In January, at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, Qobuz announced that it would launch a North American service this year. The other is a relative unknown, at least on the west side of the Atlantic.īased in France, Qobuz has been operating since 2007, but until now has been available only in a few European countries. One of them is a familiar name - now available in 57 countries, Tidal has been operating in North America since 2015. Sometime soon, hopefully before the end of 2018, North American audiophiles will have their choice of two high-resolution music-streaming services.

Audirvana plus 3 tidal 3 months