Tidal is now offering “master-quality audio recordings” to its highest-tiered subscribers, the company announced. Tidal Masters is available at no extra cost to users who already have a Tidal HiFi subscription. Described as “an audio experience exactly as the artist intended,” Tidal Masters songs are streamed at 96 kHz/24 bit. (For comparison, HiFi audio’s resolution is 44.1 kHz/16 bit, and Spotify’s highest resolution is ~320 kbps, equivalent to Tidal’s Premium tier.)
Tidal has partnered with Master Quality Authenticated to provide the higher resolution audio. Currently, Tidal Masters is available only on desktop. Below, watch a video introducing Masters. Find the streaming company’s master-quality catalog, which includes music from Jay Z, Beyoncé, David Bowie, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, and more.
>MQA encoding is lossy; it hierarchically compresses the relatively little energy in the higher frequency bands into data streams that are embedded in the lower frequency bands using proprietary dithering techniques.
>After a series of such manipulations, the resulting 44 kHz data, the layered data streams, and a final "touchup" stream (compressed difference between the lossy signal from unpacking all layers and the original) are provided to the playback device. Given the low amount of energy expected in higher frequencies, and using only 1 extra frequency band layer (upper 44 kHz band of 96/24 packed into dither of 48/16) and one touchup stream (compressed difference between original 96/24 and 48/16) are together distributed as a 48/24 stream, of which 48/16 bit-decimated part can be played by normal 48/16 playback equipment.
>One more difference to standard formats is the sampling process. The audio stream is sampled and convolved with a triangle function, and interpolated later during playback. The techniques employed, including the sampling of signals with a finite rate of innovation, were developed by a number of researchers over the preceding decade, including Pier Luigi Dragotti and others. MQA claims that the use of these novel sampling technologies may result in standard methods of analysing conventional digital audio content producing meaningless or misleading results when applied to MQA files.
>MQA-encoded content can be carried via any lossless file format such as FLAC or ALAC; hence, it can be played back on systems either with or without an MQA decoder. In the latter case, the resulting audio has easily identifiable high-frequency noise occupying 3 LSB bits, thus limiting playback on legacy devices effectively to 13bit. MQA claims that nevertheless the quality is higher than "normal" 48/16, because of the novel sampling and convolution processes.
Ayden Jackson
So not only is it lossy, but they use a shitty frequency upscale? How do they get away with calling that shit high-fidelity?
Brayden Rivera
because audiophiles are too busy listening to shit music on their $60000 cans to bother hiring up a lawyer and suing them for false advertising, however ironic
Hudson Smith
>when you fell for the FLAC meme but you're so far into it you just have to roll with it and convince people to how "superior" it is
Justin Reed
Sheer fucking waste of bandwidth with no discernible benefit. Neil Young tried this and failed.
>24/192 Music Downloads... and why they make no sense >Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.
Master quality audio is worthless for the actual end consumer, most of the audio is inaudible to humans.
The reason music is mastered to inaudible frequencies is because the use of some kinds digital and analog effects applied to the audio track can often crunch frequencies up or down, into audible range. By having a full spectrum of sound, there is audio to affected in those ranges, if they mastered at 24khz there would be nothing to crunch or pull from, hindering the effect.
Christopher Sullivan
I don't see a reason for this to exist when you can just go lossless.
Chase Taylor
Can't anyone just convert MP3 to lossless? I don't see what the big deal is.
Chase Wilson
O P U S P U S O U S O P S O P U
Grayson Garcia
96kb mp3, i don't give af
Colton White
I don't think any recorded blind test has shown that you can tell the difference between 96khz and CD quality. The difference between a good 256kbps AAC and a CD ripped lossless file is already difficult (if not impossible) to tell unless you listen to classical music and have an audiophile grade setup in a well acoustically tuned room, and even at that point the difference is minuscule and could be canceled out by a person's EQ preference anyway
Jaxon Green
This. Seriously, why do streaming services use MP3 instead of Opus? There would be no royalty fees so there is literally no reason for them to not use that instead.
Elijah Mitchell
>this
i cant tell the difference between 24/192 and 24/48 except 4x the file size on my astel and kern
i rip all my offline 3tb sacd and hires library back to 24/48 when i am on the go. Can even use it on my iphone.
>There would be no royalty fees so there is literally no reason for them to not use that instead. Not yet. But wait until the listening audience gets large enough to make a royalty worth the trouble.
Isaiah Lee
>using proprietary shit
THIS
Joseph Cooper
>lossy already completely dropped
Bentley Perry
MP3 algorithm isn't reversible.
Because it is what everybody uses.
Eli Scott
marketing.
Henry Edwards
liek u can tell the difference nigger
dropped
Colton Williams
>jay z and beyonce why would i want to listen to those niggers?
Cameron Williams
24bit is legit good, anything above 48khz is a meme
Ryan Sullivan
Tidal is meme record-company shilled shit-tier streaming for greedy rappers. Fuck 'em.
It's not even truly lossless.
>opus decoding is done is software via cpu Qualcomm Hexagon would like a word with you.
Cooper Thomas
>flac version of an album cost $8 more than mp3 version
Christopher Wright
>24bit is legit good It's a legit placebo
Hunter Phillips
>master-quality audio recordings >96 kHz/24 bit >streaming >le .mqa meme >muh golden ears god, i hope there's people dumb enough to fall for this scam
