Hi,
I am a Tidal user. I don’t use MQA though. In Volumio there is switch for MQA on or off. I can’t figure out what this does. Search results are the same no matter the status of the switch. Volumio can’t render MQA as far as I know, so what is the function of this switch?
Thanks in advance
If turned on it will pass MQA through to your DAC, Turn off and will pass the lossy MQA container to your DAC. Since your not using MQA why using Tidal and not Qobuz?
Whenever possible I chose to play the non-MQA variant of a song / album, but sometimes only MQA is available. My i2s input does not decode MQA anayhow, so there would be no difference in quality when turned on or turned off, right?
To answer your question:
Sometime ago I have subscribed to Tidal on quite a good deal (200 euro’s for 24 months). Back then I used USB input (MQA pass through). Also, when A/B testing comparison I found out that some artists weren’t available on Qobuz.
The mayor feedback on Tidal non MQA masters is that the quality is not good. Seems for MQA they use an adapted Master but now they are using the same adapted master also for non MQA.
if you turn it off you won’t hear differences, since you can’t decode it.
Lots of discussion about which service would be better. I wasn’t aiming to open such a discussion.
Thanks for clarifying!
Click on the round “i” (information help button), and it should tell you what the setting does. I would do it myself and tell you, but I ended my Tidal subscription.
i’ve found that keeping the MQA switch on delivers master quality to my DAC, while switching it off delivers hifi quality only. my dac does not support MQA, but i keep it switched on to enjoy 48khz 24bit as opposed to 44.1khz 16 bit.
