Update your Tidal and get "Masters"

is the full software decoding limit of 96/24 due to processing/performance limits or simply a design choice?
 
Time will tell. I do think, though, that to assume that people's listening habits and preferences can't change is being short sighted. Most of us now take for granted technology that wasn't even in existence 20 years ago. And yet someone made it, it worked well, and the people came in droves.

Well, exactly zero of the numerous "better" than CD formats have had any degree of popular acceptance so far. The last big attempt, Pono, has a website that's been "under construction" for months; looks to have been left for dead. Tidal has a tiny portion of the streaming pie, and is deeply in debt.

Of the majors, Apple is the only one I've seen which has stressed quality, with its Mastered For iTunes program, and the use of the excellent AAC compression scheme. So, I'm sure not seeing a huge popular groundswell of support for MQA outside the ridiculous audiophile press. Most people have far more important things to worry about, especially after today.
 
Well, exactly zero of the numerous "better" than CD formats have had any degree of popular acceptance so far. The last big attempt, Pono, has a website that's been "under construction" for months; looks to have been left for dead. Tidal has a tiny portion of the streaming pie, and is deeply in debt.

Of the majors, Apple is the only one I've seen which has stressed quality, with its Mastered For iTunes program, and the use of the excellent AAC compression scheme. So, I'm sure not seeing a huge popular groundswell of support for MQA outside the ridiculous audiophile press. Most people have far more important things to worry about, especially after today.
New article claiming that Tidal has been inflating their numbers:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/20/14336218/tidal-subscriber-numbers-inflating-report

I live in the real world where trends aren't showing the average person caring about SQ. Bluetooth speakers and sound bars are replacing the stereo and Bluetooth headphones are the hip new thing.

There were articles last year that Apple would introduce their own hi res format, but it hasn't happened. Bandwidth considerations are probably holding that back, but if they think they can charge twice as much for that tier, I wouldn't be surprised to see them add it down the road. I just don't think it will determine whether they are successful or not. The abysmal Tidal subscriber numbers prove that out. Of course, some day in the future we may be fighting off Ewoks, so I guess anything is possible in the future.
 
Well, exactly zero of the numerous "better" than CD formats have had any degree of popular acceptance so far. The last big attempt, Pono, has a website that's been "under construction" for months; looks to have been left for dead. Tidal has a tiny portion of the streaming pie, and is deeply in debt.

All services totally based in on demand streaming are deeply in debt, not one has has a profitable month let alone year

Biggest reason? People want their free or cheap music.

For me, as far as anything below lossless, they couldn't give it away to me, not interested.

Tidal is worth every penny, if the amount of MQA content rises significantly they have reason to even bump prices a bit and I would pay that too.
 
Indeed. It seems to have started with getting "free" news on the internets, maybe followed by free (pirated) music. Why pay for music when it can be had for free?

Remember when tv was free?

Cable tv has been embraced by the masses. It was similar crap to what was on free TV but more of it.

Eventually TV programming got better when cable channels started producing more content. This was followed by Netflix and Amazon among others producing more and better content.

On the other hand, music will, I fear, will continued to be a bastard child. I believe the number of people that want to pay for music will continue along the same path: a very small handful will pay but the vast majority will have no interest.

(My concern is that we are becoming more and more culturally illiterate and eventually, the masses will have less and less interest in higher art forms. Certainly, the music industry is not helping. They have always been about the money rather than better content. Ideally, it would be nice if the people that make money from the music industry would use it to support more cultural education in grade schools. This would be done by lobbying for it and helping to defray the costs associated with it. This would be done by buying instruments and helping to pay teachers.)

Sorry for the rant:beerchug:
 
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All my own $0.02:

Cable has been garbage for years, coupled with the "packages" that channels force upon us. To get one channel you want, the parent company forces 2-3 other garbage channels into the package. You end up with hundreds of channels of bloat for just a handful that you like. I work with a lot of college students and most, if not all, have ditched cable and gone with stand-alones. The funny thing is that they usually have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc. and in the end, they may not be saving that much money. Coupled with that, it requires a fast internet connection ($$$) or a costly cell-phone plan, and usually both.

My point being, everything has really switched from the cable model to the streaming model, which forces internet or cell. You can watch things wherever you want, on the go! You can be in an outhouse on the top of a mountain and watch your football game! Same with your music. But this comes at a cost, literally. And, it helps create a system where you're now reliant on cell and internet, without much competition. Data prices, with ever-increasing demands, don't really go down (at least in my neck of the woods).

+48V will jump on me for this, but.... I can see Tidal and others bleeding money to get you hooked. Maybe the last one standing wins, and then what is your alternative? Further, the labels are slowly getting away from physical media, so what choice will you have? They are businesses, with shareholders, and their job is to maximize revenue and profit. They can't and won't operate at loss forever. All of the work tracking down and transferring master tapes for MQA adds up as well, and that money will have to be accounted for eventually.

MQA Tidal, or whatever you like, won't remain this cheap forever. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Out of curiosity, for those that have or do use Tidal, between Tidal, the DAC, internet, cell and/or both, etc., how much is it *actually* costing you per month?
 
As you know,Tidal is $20 a month. Just did buy a Meridian Explorer2 for $199. Other then that, everything else I need to have anyway, be it premium cable channels for my wife's movie and Pittsburgh Steeler's fix, blazing fast internet because I won't settle for anything less and need it for those movies. 30gig with rollover with no throttling cell service is heavily discounted through job and phone and iPad are both indispensable for work related reasons. Alas, if money can fix it, it's not a problem.

Those other streaming company's, the non-lossless one's would probably make a heavy dent in the bleeding money issue if they charged $20 to $25 per month for their existing lossy streaming.

With that model in place, Tidal's lossless and MQA content or some other company like them would probably make sense at about $30 to $40 per month.

Anything less and people are undervaluing what you're getting, eventfully the capital investment that's floating those company's now involved is going to run dry. Maybe then Google, Apple or Amazon will pick up the pieces and build something sustainable. Let's hope they have a Hi-Fi enthusiast or two on the board.
 
Maybe then Google, Apple or Amazon will pick up the pieces and build something sustainable.
Maybe, or they could strip it for parts.
But this comes at a cost, literally. And, it helps create a system where you're now reliant on cell and internet, without much competition. Data prices, with ever-increasing demands, don't really go down (at least in my neck of the woods)
In my remote, sparsely populated, and isolated area we have had until now terrible internet options. I am currently getting 1mbps download speed and 20gb per month for our DSL service. That, coupled with the required dial tone line is over 100 a month! Streaming anything over 128, or even 64kbps seems to, at least on occasion drop out. Could be my internet weather station I run using up bandwidth, or one of several devices or computers updating something, but always an interruption in streamed music at some point. Our ISP has recently invested about 11 million (this for a town with a pop of 2500) to replace the microwave towers with an undersea fiber optic cable up the 80 mile fjord, and starting next week our package is going to jump about 7 fold (or so they claim). That means I will be getting 7 mbps and 150 GB per month for the same price or perhaps a little lower even! So upgrades do come to the back country! But it is painfully slow at times.
 
I'm getting ready to make some big changes, but right now I'm paying about $430 a month for cell phones, Internet, and various streaming services, including Tidal. I'm thinking I can cut that down to one cell phone for $50 a month, Internet for around $50, and Tidal for $20. As for the Tidal service itself? I suppose I could live with $30 or $40 if they keep up the good work.
 
I have thought, since first reading about MQA that I would rather they use their folded compression format to create a CD Red Book resolution for the bandwidth required now of a 256Kbps stream. Seems like this would be greeted by a much larger audience than what MQA has now with all the cell phone users out there streaming low rez files from the towers. I personally have settled on the CD as a SQ standard that (when it is mastered well) sounds plenty good enough for my 61 year old ears. With a MQA type compression algorithm that makes a 16/44.1 out of 256kbps I would sign up for that. Preferably to be done without the need to buy a DAC etc..
 
Well then…so much for my declaration/contemplation of shifting the "socio-eco-politico" discussion of the ever evolving impacts of Tidal MQA/streaming in general to another thread. Most folks it appears seem quite content leaving said aspect right here… and are doing a bang-up job continuing where I digressed a few days ago. And here I was feeling guilty of cluttering up “SQ science class”. Ah…the ebb, flow, and curvy road of forum threads. :rflmao:

Rekon I’ll jump back in the fray here…no shortage of intriguing and salient morsels and questions to chew on. Gotta run, I’ll be bach….. with some overdue replies and more food for thought.
:bye:
 
Yeah? With the powdered wig and all?
Not so much.......

index.php


My wig was sacrificed while defending reality and fending off fake abysmal futures. ;)
 
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+48V will jump on me for this, but.... I can see Tidal and others bleeding money to get you hooked. Maybe the last one standing wins, and then what is your alternative? Further, the labels are slowly getting away from physical media, so what choice will you have? They are businesses, with shareholders, and their job is to maximize revenue and profit. They can't and won't operate at loss forever. All of the work tracking down and transferring master tapes for MQA adds up as well, and that money will have to be accounted for eventually.
I will? Do tell, what ever gave you that notion? :oops:
 
Well then…so much for my declaration/contemplation of shifting the "socio-eco-politico" discussion of the ever evolving impacts of Tidal MQA/streaming in general to another thread. Most folks it appears seem quite content leaving said aspect right here… and are doing a bang-up job continuing where I digressed a few days ago. And here I was feeling guilty of cluttering up “SQ science class”. Ah…the ebb, flow, and curvy road of forum threads. :rflmao:

Rekon I’ll jump back in the fray here…no shortage of intriguing and salient morsels and questions to chew on. Gotta run, I’ll be bach….. with some overdue replies and more food for thought.
:bye:
Well, for a thread about "hey, Tidal just upgraded to MQA" by a guy called "Ramblin," I reckon there isn't really a defined direction that should be taken. :) It's a fluid conversation.
 
'm getting ready to make some big changes, but right now I'm paying about $430 a month for cell phones, Internet, and various streaming services
Holy hell that's a lot of money! Of course, I'm one of the 3 people left on earth without a cell phone. I have a phone at my desk at work, a phone on my wall at home, and it's all worked out pretty well so far. Full disclosure, I DO have a tablet and internet and my job consists of using Linux and processing data all day. I'm not a luddite, I just have different priorities than others.
 

Because they want it for free. It's on the internet, why shouldn't it be free or at a nominal cost. They can get their news, porn, what have you all free of charge like it should be included with the internet connection. That's the mindset.

Now when an obviously superior product is offered there is pushback because you have to pay an appropriate monthly fee for it.

I'm uncertain how long it will take but this "new stew" is going to go sour. Even the huge supposedly successful companies like Spotify never make money ever, that's ever... it's not like they have a bad quarter or down year, in Spotify's case it's not because of lack of subscribers, as their subscribers have increased so have their losses. There product has been undervalued by these company's, possibly on purpose I guess in an effort to help build share to such point they have convinced the consumer it not worth much.

My thoughts, I couldn't care less about copy protection, I care about lossy compression, poorly recorded music with low dynamic range. In particularly digital sound processing in the digital realm. I can do that digitally in the analog realm. Give me the product I want and I'll pay you fairly for it.
 
I don't stream music (yet), but I do still buy new CDs and records. I think I might have mentioned that I work with college students and by and large, the mindset is, "why would you pay for music. That's stupid." (maybe not so harsh, but you get the idea). Oddly, they'll easily pay for a $$$ cell plan and then shell out more for Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO and other services.

I don't think this is really new though. I suspect it started with reel-to-reel and cassettes, but really took off with the ability to rip CDs, Napster and the like. The days of big money for the recording industries are close to over and streaming services won't exist to continually take losses yet pay for those tunes. People love to listen to music but nobody (well, mostly nobody) wants to pay for it. Strange times.
 
And a perfect example of the other side of the coin is this:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/vinyl-rips-on-youtube.698384/

Why pay for the tunes when you can just listen to them on youtube? To hell with MQA quality. :)


Edit- Within that thread is a link to an arstechnica story on a lawsuit against a youtube ripping service:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...g-in-copyright-lawsuit-targeting-youtube-mp3/

I found this section ineteresting:

'The lawsuit—which comes two weeks after a survey found that about 50 percent of people aged 16-24 now stream rip—names Philip Matesanz as the site's owner and operator living in Germany. The site did not immediately respond for comment.

The suit says Youtube-mp3.org has "tens of millions of users and is responsible for upwards of 40% of all unlawful stream-ripping of music from YouTube in the world."'

Paid for streaming is a niche, which makes Tidal MQA service and extreme niche. The future looks grim indeed.
 
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