Tidal Max

[coliny]

Tidal's Apps now include HiRes offerings, see attachment

Hires files are identified by a Max icon and these include MQA. Unless you measure output or have a DAC displaying Sample Rate you won't know exactly what you are getting.

I have Volumio for Tidal Streaming and it does not yet show Max files it still shows the M icon for MQA albums. Its probably the same for other 3rd party Tidal Streaming Apps.

For example Rufus Wainwright/Folkocracy:-

 via Volumio is still marked as M for MQA and plays at 48/24 (no MQA decoding with Volumio).

Streaming it with Tidal Android App it is marked Max and plays at 96/24 (I had MQA Pass Through enabled so I think its genuine HiRes).
 
Downloading and playing it with the Tidal Android App and it plays at 192/24 (possibly the App upsamples it).

Mission for Peter should he wish to accept it !!!

Colin

[PeterSt]

At this moment all is too vague - and even worse than how it was with MQA alone. Probably this just *is* MQA as per reports that people's MQA DAC lits blue or green or whatever MQA colour.

Tidal itself is not to be trusted, like them just ditching software that can decode MQA which they or someone don't like ?

All 'n all I am waiting a little till the dust drops. But I will also try examples and see what comes from them technically, but also audibly.
Keep in mind that this is about the Spectrograph thing again and that you could do the same tests as you did (with so much efforts) before. If you only have that download means first (and I think you have that).

I am not sure yet how to approach this. I mean, if it would be decoded MQA, it should be possible to compare it to MQA-decoded files we decoded ourselves (IOW, the Unicode files again - you know about it all, Colin).

Notice that I don't/didn't trust the Max stuff from the start.

Best regards,
Peter

[coliny]

Hi Peter

Appreciate all you say about Max.

I don't have any download option that enables me to examine the Spectrographs. Download is only possible at moment with android and you can't examine the file, its only possible to play them with the Tidal App. 3rd party apps never worked well for me and probably won't see Max files now.

I prefer sound quality from the W10 Tidal App over the Android App and that's with an up to date W10, possibly 14393.0 would be better but has to be online which might be risky.

Regards
Colin

[PeterSt]

Hi Colin and everyone,

A bit late with responding ...

I made good progress yesterday. The general consensus is that I was finally able to create an environment that allows comparison (meaning : all in good shape from within XXHighEnd). This now also allows to observe what "Max" does or does not.

Having said that, I don't even know yet how to recognize "Max" as such. This could be the most simple "look at the Sampling Rate, Peter !". Sure, but I like to have the examples first. When I have a couple - or know how to find them via the Tidal app - I can run the Spectrograph as usual (from within XXHighEnd). So if you have suspects, don't hesitate to post them here !
I think I told about it elsewhere, but if we have a new way of knowing how to observe certain data, it will be a matter of laying out the workflow as how I go about it myself at this moment. This means (for short cuts) that XXHighEnd can not search and integrally create the Library Area with Tidal albums as how we were used to, but they still will be there and, for example, show the latest (New) albums ready to play. Below an example of my New library (most people won't even know about the New feature as per last 2.11 super vague Release Notes), which just shows over my good old 2.11 Audio PC (Mach III in my case) without any bit of upgrade - put there yesterday. So the workflow is about how to create that in such a way that it is downwards compatible with all we have. And regardless of Max (which may or should work just the same), I have that now.

And for the best fun again : You can see it never stops and how I never get around with a new version, because now I finally have this going, it is Max which tempts again or a next new step first. I am also quite definite about something else (or actually not) : this Cloud stuff does not work out at all because a developer like me will always be behind the facts and things just stop working underway. I think elsewhere (in the realm of Tidal) I talked about how I killed the Amazon integration because of the very same, but already more than 10 years ago ... today this still happens. Tidal changes things, MQA comes about, MQA disappears, Tidal changes prior to that, and now Tidal changes again (with the Max thing, FWIW at this moment). The ERP environment (my main job) bugs me the very same. If the main tools are not "on premise" as how it is called, then it is up to the Gods how your company will survive the next month with the grilles (?) of the vendor(s) involved. I have *that* still all on premise, but it means that there can't be progress or else I have to do all myself within that shielded environment. Tidal is very similar, while they even cut me (XXHighEnd) off (say because I kept on going my own way, including not doing what MQA prescribed). In the end I will lose that - in the end all the customers will lose. But still not yet ... 

Peter

[coliny]

Hi Peter

Paul Simon/Your the One might tell you something.

Via Tidal App its Max & plays at 96KHz with & without MQA pass through so probably genuine HiRes (sounds great) Tidal #4157739.

Via Volumio it plays at 48/24 and marked as MQA (no decoding possible with volumio)

My download from XXHE from years ago also Tidal#4157739 is 44/24 and confirmes as MQA using the MqaTagRestorer.

Colin

[PeterSt]

Hey Colin,

Great thanks - I can work with that.
But bad news - as expected ...
It is 16/44.1 or IOW, the stupid MQA stuff (not even the "good" stuff, because 16 bits).

Internally it is denoted "HiRes" opposed to "Lossless" (smart move) and it readily explains why I deemed many albums flawed-sounding - this will sound bad as well (because molested Hires and nothing is done to it by XXHighEnd now (MQA decoding is disengaged per new download means).

Of course this depends on your info, although I can of course check that myself too. Wait ...
Hmm ... that says Master, so where did you find Max ? I verified the ID :
https://tidal.com/browse/album/4157739
hahahahahaha, bunch of stupid ***sholes. Look below;

So my Tidal player proposed an update and after that voilá, the Master denotation changed to Max.

As a bonus, the last picture shows nothing next to the albums while prior to the update more than half showed "Master" next to them.

So as expected, Tidal is fooling us all and I guess it won't be so that they saw that I can see through all (XXHighEnd can), and thus they banned XXHighEnd as a software player from Tidal. I do like to think this though.

Question is : how do all formal Tidal players work with this ? have they all been banned ?
How does the existing MQA hardware go about this ? The album is exactly the same as it was (you could do a compare, Colin) so that hardware (but also software players) will happily show it is still MQA.

In the end it is not the best example, because we should have a 24 bit one. But now I know how this works, I can inject those myself a. to the new environment and b. to the Tidal app.

More in a next post.

[PeterSt]

Something is seriously wrong, and possibly Tidal doesn't know that themselves.

First a conclusion of what's below, because I don't think I knew this : it should be so that the Tidal MQA presentation always was done on the fly. Read : during the playback (download if you will) the album is processed and turned into MQA. This should be derived from the "fact" that the Album ID stayed the same (see below) while today no 24 bit file comes from it. You will believe me when I say that the bottom version was denoted Max.

It may be less easy to grasp that the original MQA album was 24/96, but see below to proved that (2nd picture).

So one hour or so further and I have not been able to find even one album that would be Hires, so what remains is the proof that the Tidal app plays them as Hires. So let's see how we do that ...
Well, no clue. I guess this starts with not being able to play anyway because of (a Tidal message) "There's a network issue - unable to play".
Oh well.

An intermittent other conclusion seems to be that with the one album showing Max and the other showing nothing (= "Lossless") both are always 16/44.1 for those cases I examined and this includes existing ones on my HDD which are 24/48 at the file level. I have no clue / hint about whether these albums now are album-originals (CD's) or that now all flaws over at Tidal's and that Album ID's have been mixed up or what not.

If someone is able to verify the playback rate of the Stevie Wonder album (see in the first picture below) by Tidal app means, please don't hesitate. This should not be done by something like Roon, because that will upsample by default, once it detects MQA (and that tag sure is still in there - it now implies the Max tag).

I suppose it is very well possible that all is now tweaked such, that all prior MQA playback now thinks it is Hires. Why ? well, because
a. It was MQA's prescription for a few years already that upsampling should be done 2x by standard (I just did not comply to that with XXHighEnd);
b. I heard that MQA lights still lit, but that the blue/green led comes not on any more.

Ad b.: This would testify that officially MQA was shut off, but that we are fooled as much as we already were. Just by full automation. You can't see it on anything. Yea, with XXHighEnd ...
Or download the files and throw some knowledge at it (look at the file size - play through Foobar and *know* that it s*cks to begin with or else you'd be sure to do something wrong (while you are doing it right).

Pfff

[nik.d]

Hi Peter,

I have a small USB dac, 'Light Harmonic GeekOut' 32/384 capable playing music through Tidal desktop app. Was confused to see 'Max' files playing at 48000 sampling rate. Today opened 'More settings' on chosen output device (GeekOut), activated 'Exclusive mode' and beside highly shifted volume slider I've got 96000 sampling rate. That was with Paul Simon's a/m album and same with Stevie Wonder's one.

Since I have no MQA capable hardware, I've reached SW sampling rate limit and this is how Tidal team 'hides' it. DAC's driver shows only sr, not bit depth unfortunately. Again, beware of sudden very high volume increase!

George

[PeterSt]

Hey George, thank you !

For others : what you see below I still had on-screen, so yes, indeed that.

... But I may miss the point of what you are trying to bring across ...

In any event the files as how they will be on your HDD do not contain the data to "be" HiRes. Look at the files sizes in my previous post. The top part of the two lists is close to twice the size of the bottom part; the bottom part is just 16/44.1 (the top part 24/48).
For more reference below a screenshot of a "local" genuine album in FLAC with slightly worse FLAC compression.

So, despite of what you wanted to bring across, I see that the Tidal app upsamples just as the MQA prescription has been (thus not only for Roon and Hardware, but also for the Tidal app itself).

We are all hoaxed, and it is my estimate that some pay extra for that as well (my subscription still costs 19,99 for "Hires").

Super thanks !
Peter

[coliny]

The data I published in this post was misleading.

The Tidal PC App with Exclusive Mode OFF plays at whatever sample rate is set as Default in Windows Audio Device settings (ie Windows does the sample rate conversion) see attached. Therefore Sample Rates from Tidal App will only mean something With Exclusive Mode ON.

Will re publish my album sample rate data in a new post.


Colin

[coliny]

Album Sample Rate data in revised spreadsheet attached.

I am cautious to draw conclusions because it is not clear to me yet whether the Tidal App see different files than 3rd party apps such as Volumio and XXHE.

My data does suggest that Patricia Barber/Cliques is still MQA with the Tidal App (but this could change at any time).

The only thing that is consistent for all the other albums in the spreadsheet would be if Tidal is seeing different files now, otherwise how or why has the Emotional Oranges album gone from 44K to 48K, if Tidal App is upsampling would it not have gone to 88K.

Colin

[PeterSt]

I think there is interpretation involved as well.

As I have a kind of proved (kind of !) that all can be done on ad-hoc basis by Tidal, they could execute the MQA "folding" just the same. But now it all depends on the Tidal "download app" which a. downloads and b. interprets what to do with it (example : MQA).

My own conclusions so far in this topic could be wrong just the same. We must really throw some IQ/reasoning at it.