XXHighEnd

Ultimate Audio Playback => XXHighEnd Support => Topic started by: coliny on November 06, 2022, 12:12:07 pm



Title: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on November 06, 2022, 12:12:07 pm
Recent Tidal Master give error message when I try to play them:-
File Allocated but cannot play...........

I found that the track .flac.mtt files do not contain a value in MQARATE :
Looking at MQA albums that do play I saw that the MQARATE : should be twice the rate displayed by XXHE when you add an album to Play list.
I edited the .flac.mtt files to include the appropriate MQARATE and album decoded & played OK.
Example: https://tidal.com/browse/album/228798472

See attached edited file

Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on November 06, 2022, 02:26:12 pm
Hi Colin,

I think we saw this maybe 6 months ago already. Or I saw it myself - not sure any more. So I solved this for myself (due for public upgrade of course) but things keep changing out there and I never get around to finalize it. And Yes, the other day I really worked to get it done finally, but something else was the matter again which didn't motivate me to now sort *that* out again. Anyway I recall that the MQARATE was not obtained in the FLAC file any more, so I had to change half of the code to get that to work again.

Meanwhile ...

Meanwhile I am not motivated into MQA much any more because Tidal is changing more and more to even fake MQA with as key element that the originals disappear, which in the end leads to losing interest in Tidal as a whole.  Now *that* in itself did not happen yet, but I had to revamp the whole Tidal searching because *that* changed over there and finishing that part seems to be something which is too much for me.

Summarized, these external "cloud tools" just do not work out for me, because they change things when they like it and don't even tell about it (we, the user, just run into it and must Google to find out what the h*ck happened).

From a very long time ago, people may recall that one could buy albums from Amazon. But the same thing : they kept on changing the interface (or API if you will) and each time caused many days of work. In the end I eliminated the functionality.

And so I keep adding new or corrected stuff and never create an upgrade for you guys, because each time something else is working "half" (can be avoided when I am faster - haha).

Regards and thanks a lot for sharing, as always !
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: acg on November 08, 2022, 06:36:06 am
Peter, streaming Qobuz sounds better here than streaming Tidal...it is not really even close, and I am considering giving up my Tidal subscription because if Qobuz has the track I will just stream it from there.  Crazy, I know, that different streaming services sound different, but Tidal has really dropped the ball on sound quality.


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: Robert on November 08, 2022, 09:53:58 am
I agree "acg" gave up on Tidal last year. Qobuz definitely better than Tidal.

Mind you I'm not listening to any streaming for serious listening now. Only to find new music which is getting harder these days with DR going down to 3 and 4 on some new electronic music. How low can you go!!!





Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on November 09, 2022, 05:20:05 pm
In defence of Tidal/MQA I have been going through my previous downloads and adding the MQADATA rate to the .mtt files (see first post of this topic) and they all unfold and play OK. Had to do this to all downloads in past 12 months. Amongst them were 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96K before unfolding files.

I did find this album
https://tidal.com/browse/album/60714019
 which I downloaded 17 months ago and already had
MQADATA d44100 played but did not unfold. change to d88200 and files unfolded and played OK.

So for the time being at least I am happy using Tidal & editing MQADATA if necessary .

Colin




 


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on December 30, 2022, 08:51:26 am
To speed up editing the MTT files I have created 2 macros using Macro Toolworks free edition.
Download and install it:- https://www.pitrinec.com/download
Copy the 2 attached macros to the Toolworks macro folder.
Start Toolworks and open both the macros.
Attached jpeg MQA Macro Start shows what it should look like.
Open the first .MTT file and position cursor below last line of text (as in jpeg).
When you stream a Tidal album note sample rate, the MQARate will be twice this.

If MQARate is already there without a value just highlight it before running the macro.

ctl+8 runs the 88200 macro or ctl+9 runs the 96000 macro.

Result should be like attached jpeg MQA Macro Done.
Close MTT file and repeat for remaining MTT files.

I have streamed a lot of MQA albums and all play well after editing the MQARate. Even 44/16 MQA albums work.

Good Luck & Happy New Year
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on December 30, 2022, 09:16:05 am
Colin, man, invaluable !

I wish I could check it thoroughly, but I can't anymore because it was solved for myself. That is, "half" or so, because what I see from Tidal can't be trusted any more. Explanation :

Say half (if not more) of MQA albums are now totally fake. This means that they don't have an unfold at all, but are still denoted MQA. This is not what I see back in your workflow, so I can't see how that must be dealt with (by you, by your scripts, by us users who (apparently ?) must deal with this by eye. ... I hope I make sense so far ?

I recall that the last thing I did - 4 months or so ago - was skipping the MSQ 44.1 (or 48 would they exist) which don't unfold, at all. This is because a. it is too vague to deal with and b. it is literally useless. With the later I mean : I am not enthusiastic about a changed album (processed by whatever means) which does not even have a higher sampling rate than how it is presented at "download". Thus, I avoid those as the plague. XXHighEnd thus avoids those (I forgot for this moment how this shows - probably not at all (the album does not appear in the Library area).

Coincidentally I started to explicitly play MQA's again, lately. What I should do now, is obtain MQA's again, because I stopped with that, say 4 months ago (this is because XXHighEnd was half-finished for them). That way I can see better what is and what is not good - but probably that job is finished already.
On a side note : that leaves the selection (Search) for the albums in general, which is finished for Artists (and works more than great) but must still be done for the other means (Album Name, Track, Album ID). This is because Tidal changed things (a year or so ago) without even telling about it.

Anyway Colin, what you did looks great. Maybe you can elaborate a little on the 44.1 albums which don't unfold anyway, and how you deal with those then.

Cheers,
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on December 30, 2022, 10:24:47 am
Hi Peter, try this one:-
https://tidal.com/browse/artist/9985127

Its 44/16 unfolds to 88 and plays fine after editing the MTT files.

Quite a few recent additions to Tidal are 44/16. Apparently CD's with MQA are available now so I think they are genuine.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-encoded-cds-yes

I have worked through my library of Tidal downloads and edited the MTT files and they all play.
Just a few would not play with a custom filter but they all play with Arc Predict.

I use the Tidal App to find albums & copy/paste the share link into XXHE TT search.

Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on January 01, 2023, 11:38:35 am
Hi Colin and all - Happy New Year !

Quote
Its 44/16 unfolds to 88 and plays fine after editing the MTT files.

It is a technical thing; You can't "unfold" to double the rate without adding a bit (I am referring to the bits in bytes). Thus would you do that, then level information is chopped off. This is not easy to grasp ...

When the 16/44.1 is transferred to 24/88.2 (sorry about using my own bits/sampling rate language), then you'd say that a sufficient amount of bits have been added (namely 8). But this has to be approached from the other side : how can the 16 bits contain information about MQA while not FIRST consuming bits for that.
This is how a 24/44.1 is different, because the required headroom for level information is still only 2x for 2x more sampling rate. Very indirectly I am now saying that a 88.2 native file, only needs to be 17 bits and not 24 as how it is presented to us. But *that* is because how bits and bytes and converters work - they jump by the 8 (one byte) although 4 would also be possible. But not 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 etc.

From MQA which really unfolds it is known that only 17 bits real data are used. Maybe mr. MQA / Bob Stuart was not really stupid, and he apparently knows a few things.

Now to the conclusion :
When 16/44.1 would be liable to fold, then first at least one bit has to be removed from the 16 bits, if not three or whatever the reality is.
When 16/.44.1 would be encoded as MQA, in those original 16 bits (from the orginal album) at least one bit is not original any more. And since it is encoded MQA and since this is not only obtained in the FLAC file any more (as you discovered, like me - something like over a year ago), then it *has* to be the file itself which is molested. And since 16 bits is not already all that much it is, well, molested.
Apart from these more vague conclusions, the main conclusion is that when 16/44.1 MQA is transferred to 24.88.2, nothing unfolds as such - it is upsampled only.

Maybe now it is clear better why I simply avoid these 16/44.1 - they are fake as fake can be, plus technically worse.

Additionally to all there's this :
The official MQA decoding standard as of the last 2 years (don't pin me down on that period of time) is that no MQA denoted album will ever play at 44.1 or 48. It will only play at double the base rate (the rate in the file). The only player which does not comply to that is XXHE. So the only player where you can still see the truth (whatever that's worth) is XXHE. You could also say that from the start I did my stinking best to show all the various truths within MQA (try that with Roon or the Tidal app etc. and you will get nowhere).
The kind of verdict of this little story is that nobody is able to see any more what's 16/44.1 because ALL is upsampled to begin with, whether it is justified or not. Thus, whether you let "unfold" your 16/44.1 MQA to 24/88.2 or let e.g. XXHighEnd do that, it is no less than upsampling - and it is up to you whether you apply that or not (sampling rate slider). However, what happens with MQA now, is that good 16/44.1 albums are transferred to (processed with) MQA fake stuff, and next they are upsampled. A more worse situation does not exist. Better would be your beloved 16/44.1 being upsampled by good means to 24/88.2, or what we are used to : to 24/705.6.



Last thing : *Because* XXHighEnd's MQA does not contain an unfold from 16/44.1 to 24/88.2 (it really hasn't), all what would be happening is that by the means of your tweaking of the .MTT file, XXHighEnd sets the sampling rate to 2x the original, and it will upsample herself to that, prior to your sampling rate slider being involved and upsampling further (like to 705.6).

Maybe it starts to be clear somewhat how it virtually has become impossible to make something out of all this mess, with Tidal in the background also changing things (and a next dimension being that FLAC file which *was* some last resort which its header data - but which got killed).
It is not undoable (for me), but it requires reasoning around false logic and untruths, coincidentally Bob S. in the front row with that again.

I will (kind of) repeat : there is no logic in what to do with a 16/44.1 (or 16/48) because whatever the logic, it is a lie. And thus in my version over here I just don't present them for search result. That avoids the problem, right ? ehh ... Yes. But because Tidal is changing about all (or at least a LOT) to 16/44.1 MQA, the albums now become unavailable. And it is me who decides that for you. :-( Understand ? this does not feel good at all and it implies infinite postponing of an update (of XXHE) I sure could have.
But one day I will do it anyway ...

Kind regards,
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on January 02, 2023, 06:04:09 pm
Thank's for the explanation. The justification of editing the 44/16 MTT files is just that they do play in XXHE with MQA decoding enabled, so I don't have remember whether I have to turn off decoding.
I fully accept the 44/16 albums in Tidal and marked as MQA will not have best SQ but if I like the music I can always look elsewhere for a better version.

Regard
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: rudolf on January 07, 2023, 12:15:47 pm
 :) thanks coliny, your workaround works fine and is also quite important to me !!!
 :) thanks peter, i keep coming back to xxhighend all the time (whether there is a 2.12 version or not... )!!!
P.S.: MQA files (at least the 'real' ones) sound good in xxhighend for me ...


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on January 31, 2023, 11:24:41 am
Hi Peter

You established that the 44/16 Tidal Masters don't unfold in XXHE and I agree with that finding.

Do we know for sure that XXHE will unfold genuine MQA16. If there is doubt about this I thought it might be possible verify this by buying an MQA-CD and ripping it for replay with XXHE. There are MQA-CD's which can be purchased on ebay.

Best Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on February 01, 2023, 12:19:00 pm
Hey Colin,

The situation is IMO more vague and therefore more complex to explain / reason out;

A CD will never upsample in a normal CD Player. And if it is MQA adaptive, I think it still will not do that. If I am correct in this, there will also be no unfold.
Additionally I already know there is no unfold. Why ? because it is known that it is a 16 bit original. So what could happen is that it can be upsampled, but THAT is only fake and in the end the very same as most software these days do - including XXHE. One thing : this upsampling is for a very good reason : digital (reconstruction) filtering.

Combine this with the new rules for all MQA adaptive software (like Roon) : it will upsample by default. This - as how I see is - was literally sneaked in 3-4 years ago, and only later MQA & Bob claimed to have 16 bit MQA. I say : BS. But the nasty thing is : you can not see this any more when the software (like Roon) is dictated to upsample 2x by standard (read : it is not allowed under the MQA regime to bypass that).

And so you are fooled.
But not by me.

I have no doubt that you, Colin, are able to tweak the MQA 16 bits in your current version of XXHE (I can't do that any more) so you have it "unfolded". OK, now ask for a Spectogram of it. Show us that Spectrogram (after trying a few albums/tracks) and/or give your judgment of what you see.
One thing : I can show you numerous (if not about all) Spectrograms of MQA 24 bit unfolding to 88.2 or 96, which all show proper HiRes (while these ever back were very hard to find on e.g. HDTracks).

Best regards,
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on February 01, 2023, 05:32:35 pm
Hi Peter

Updated 2.2.23:-

I generated some spectrograms 48/24 & 44/24 MQA files do show data above 24/22 KHz but no 44/16KHz MQA files I have tried show any content above 22KHz.

Bob Stuarts info does imply to me that MQA16 should also decode (unfold).

https://bobtalks.co.uk/a-deeper-look/deeper-look-mqa-16b-in-the-last-mile/

Best Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on February 02, 2023, 07:19:20 pm
Hi Colin,

You now seem to turn things upside down. :-)
If you tweak that .MTT file with btw :

Quote
Even 44/16 MQA albums work.
(your own text)

It *is* decoded. But nothing will happen because ... I say so ?
I am afraid you listen too much to Bob.

Obviously I asked you for a reason to make that Spectogram. This is because it will show nothing above 20.050 - at least to my expectation.
Now upsample them (like Roon or anything does). Now it will show ...
... data which is rubbish.

You can do that yourself by upsampling 2x and grab the UnicodeTrack0001.wav file (in your XX folder). Now put that in a normal music folder and make a Spectrogram of it.
This is nothing worth much and only for your reference so you can see the "fake" happening. This is no unfolding of course. This should have (if so) shown by the Spectrogram you made.

Kind regards as always,
Peter (not fed up by this at all !)


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on February 06, 2023, 05:27:52 pm
Hi Peter

When I said "Even 44/16 MQA albums work." in an earlier post I only meant the files played OK I recognized then that they just upsampled and did not unfold.

I have done more tests by playing tracks using my DAC into soundcard and generating FFT spectrums and averaging about 10s music. With no upsampling applied by XXHE. Comparing with decoding on and off. I can quite clearly see if they unfold to get data above 22KHz

Results are attached, my conclusions relating to Tidal albums so far are:-

48/24 MQA all decode correctly

44/24 MQA only 1 found so far that decodes this one from 2L.

44/16 MQA not found any that unfold.

Next I will try measuring some 44/24 files by playing from the Tidal App .

Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on February 25, 2023, 10:54:44 am
I have done a lot more investigation of Tidal Masters & exchanged emails about this with Peter.
The big find was a utility freely available from MQA called MQA TagRestorer. It allows one to check if a music file is MQA and if it is restores the OrignalSampleRate Tag to the FLAC file which MQA deleted from all Tidal Master downloads a few years back. Its the OrignalSampleRate which enables us to get the right MQARATE for the .MTT files in XXHE.

There is a big BUT however. Many of the recent Tidal Masters reveal that the OriginalSampleRate is either 44100 or 48000 so there can't have been any music info to fold/unfold above 22 or 24KHz. So it looks like MQA does not fold these albums and I suppose it only De blurs. Measuring the Tidal App output I only see upsampling to 88200 or 96000 of these offending albums.

Back to XXHE and it always tries to unfold MQA and if you enter 44100 or 48000 as MQARATE it won't work.
So as suggested in an earlier post entering 88200 or 96000 is best way to make them playable. But this does not upsample them, XXHE will show 88200 or 96000 but the Unicode...wav file stays at 44100 or 48000. You can use XXHE's own ArcPredict upsampling but its actual output rate will always be half the value displayed. Custom Filters don't work because of this issue.

I don't want to get into a Sound Quality debate some of the low rate Masters sound ok. I don't understand why MQA have accepted 44100 or 48000 masters for encoding when higher rate files will be available in most cases.

You can get the MQA TagRestorer here:-
https://www.mqa.co.uk/tag435sdf43te

Happy Pondering
Colin



Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on February 26, 2023, 05:58:08 am
Thank you so much for all you hard work, Colin.

All is a bit pitfall-ish, already because I don't think that MQA claims that CDs can "unfold" (but you refer(red) to links some times from BobS which need a subscription which I have not - so I can't really read what is in there). What I know is :

In 2016 or so I was told (by telephone) that at some stage normal CDs would be MQA'd too. In by book this won't and can't mean that they will be able to unfold, as there is nothing to unfold. Now, it could be hoped that it does (unveils a higher sampling rate), but I don't have these hopes at all because it just can't be. And as you saw, that is not so indeed.
The real pitfall of course is the "law" of upsampling to 88.2. Thus, Roon must do that (governed by MQA Ltd), Tidal player must do that, hardware must do that, all must do that. And XXHighEnd does not.

The fact that XXHighEnd can not deal with it, is because at the time it was not recognized that it should be decoded (it did not exist). Most probably if I would hand it properly to the decoder, it indeed "deblurs" as you tell it, but it may also depict to upsample, and the combination could work BUT is worse than the original CD upsampled by known XXHighEnd means.

While the deblurring could be a pile of BS (in my view), the 24 bit files at least comprise highres inside, and they *can* unfold to normal 88.2 / 96. It is 99 times better than all the fake highres around, as I don't recall any fake MQA highres. So for that matter alone it may sound better, and about the deblurring I don't know. Mind you, the way MQA (via hardware) depicts the upsampling, is very much alike Arc Prediction with no ringing and such. So that part is ... well ... uhm ... the good part according to MQA (they may call that deblurring because actually there is less blurr by no-ringing (much much more to say about this), but if that were all there is to it, then MQA is a pile of air, except they offer highres while others do not. And mind you, I know for a fact that MQA has access to originals, e.g. the big producers had/have not.

One step more to unfold : If MQA would not present the LOWER res files, there would nothing left to be upsampled per the means MQA wants (which takes care of the not-ringing filtering).
So you see, MQA could be the biggest hoax ever, because it does not even deblur. It does one thing only (as how I see it) :

1. Bring a highres file in low reaolution (downsample it !)
1. Offer a couple of low-ringing filters which blur less according to what we are used to (DAC filters and such).

Yes, that is 2x 1.

The coincidence with XXHighEnd we have is
a. The adjacent DAC is NOS(1) and does not do a thing for filtering;
b. The filtering applied by software is not-ringing even one sample.

So that is 2x something (of also nothing).
Thus the bad luck for MQA is that I already do exactly the same, with one difference : I can't magically create highres from CD's (can only upsample them), while MQA has access to the originals often, which are highres and don't exist anywhere else (for those occasions that they don't). Again, this story is longer, but I know.
We would be better off if we had those originals with all there 24 bits in e.g. 96 or 192 sampling rate, but they just don't exist outside of what HDTracks et all may uncover.

We are also better off with the original CDs and this is exactly what happened as long as e.g. Tidal let them be and not molest by MQA encoding. Maybe, very maybe, that is just a hoax, and for that I should alter the software instead of writing posts like this. But still, a post like this takes 20 minutes, while finding where to be in the code (because this is about tweaking) is easily a day, and I don't have that day.
But I will. I mean, now I know that the 16bit CDs could be unmolestedly in there (apart from here and there one bit used to turn on a green or blue light), I should listen to those and especially not decode them and normally upsample them.

Best regards,
Peter



Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on February 26, 2023, 06:01:43 pm
Hi Peter

I do have some time these days so if there is anything I might be able to do to help just ask.

I looked at one MQA track from Hiromi which is 24/48 and Tagrestorer says ORIGINALSAMPLERATE was 48.
I compared the Unicode...WAV files with decoding on & off but they look identical to me, see attached.

https://tidal.com/browse/album/276031302

Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on March 09, 2023, 11:57:12 am
Further to reply#16 I have worked through my MQA downloads with the TagRestorer and find many have an originalsamplerate of 44100 or 48000 so nothing to unfold even though they are recognised as MQA.

Also the 44100 ones are 16bit and decode to 24bit.

I find the 24bit ones  (before decoding) which don't double their frequency when decoded play ok with MQARATE set to 44100 or 48000 as appropriate so have attached macros for this.

The 16bit ones jump to next track prematurely with MQARATE of 44100 0r 48000 so do require 88200 or 96000 to play properly.

To differentiate various possibilities the TagRestorer can be used but needs something like dBpoweramp installed to show the metadata:- see attached.

Alternative is install mp3tag free version. This can be adjusted to show Frequency & Bit Depth. Attached example is for a downloaded album showing all tracks are 48000/24. also it shows how to edit a column to show bit depth.

Next start Mp3tag and change directory to your XXHE folder and in XXHE (can be Full OS Attanded) play a track with decoding turned ON. When play starts click refresh in Mp3tag and the unicode.... file will show the decoded frequency & bit depth. See attached.

Now you have necessary info to set MQARATE in the MTT files.
I determine there a 3 options:-

1. Unicode...file frequency is twice the undecoded frequency then set MQARATE to the Unicode...file frequency.

2. Unicode...file frequency is same as the undecoded frequency and undecoded bit depth is 16 bit then set MQARATE to the twice Unicode...file frequency.

3. Unicode...file frequency is same as the undecoded frequency and undecoded bit depth is 24 bit then set MQARATE to the Unicode...file frequency.

Hope this is useful

Colin




 


Title: QOBUZ!
Post by: pedal on March 10, 2023, 10:00:41 am
Streaming has become a necessity.
But why not switch to Qobuz? It has less titles than Tidal, but is hassle-free. No decoding.
I have been a Qobuz-subscriber for 2 years and number of titles are increasing all the time.


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on March 10, 2023, 06:31:40 pm
I have been more than busy this week, but ran coincidentally on the albums you see below - the rightmost three.

They don't unfold at all, although the pre-process marked them as MQA anyway (MQA44). They play as 16/44.1, but are of course upsampled like everything. I can see that they are from June 2021 and I will most probably be able to find more what I prepared from that time period.

Point is : these sound just fine to my ears, though special for their era (something like end 60s I'd say). *That* they still sound special is a good sign. It somehow (wants to) tells me that this was not tampered with. And so indeed, there will be some bit (now and then) used for the MQA detection, but that does not disturb (my ears).
Keep in mind : these are not decoded. XXHighEnd just leaves them alone, and this is in the XXHighEnd version you use too (the latest). Where these still can be found - I don't know (I did not look either) but it could be worth trying. But more importantly : I should have a reference by these. IOW, what is the software NOT doing to them and why. Probably today I can not test that (because all what seems fake I skip), BUT I know the dates of these plus I will be able to trace back by date what I all changed since (ahem) April 2021 (latest public version).

So right; I now can search / sort by date for MQA 16/44.1 from around that time (June 2021) and listen to more of them ...

Colin, again thank you very much for the spent effort. I will try to make that fruitful.
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on March 10, 2023, 06:50:41 pm
A limited result ...

When I go 6 months beyond that end date, I have some more (2nd screenshot). Btw, mind the blue icons only (44). But I already know by heart that most I see are 24/44.1. They also don't unfold but they are decoded. This is fine with me and not of my interest today. The interest is : find the software means I must have (had !) in there to leave the 16/44.1's alone for decoding. The the Deep Purple ones.

Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on March 11, 2023, 10:41:44 am
Hi Peter

Downloaded Deep Purple/Hard Road/CD01 - It is 44/16 Tagrestorer says ORIGINALSAMPLERATE is 44100. It decodes to 44/24 just like all the other 44/16 MQA albums I have.

In the period 1.4.21 to 1.9.21 I have 4 MQA albums 3 of which are 44/16 :-
K.D.Lang - Sing It Load
Pink Floyd - Animals Remastered
Joan Armatrading - Consequences

The other album is Gretchen Parlato - Flor but this is 44/24 with ORIGINALSAMPLERATE 88200 so full MQA

I also see that that the Unicode.... file decodes to same rate and depth whatever MQARATE you put in the MTT files or even if its blank. So I am guessing that the MQARATE just influences whether tracks play to the end or not.

Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on March 12, 2023, 08:18:19 pm
So I just obtained this one and a couple more. I see that I denote these "formally" MQA16 (see in the title bar below). This does not unfold or act strange or anything; it is just not dealt with by the MQA decoder. Also see the 1411 kbits/sec in the top-middle.

Does it sound optimally ? I don't know - I didn't know it. And because I didn't have it plus I like to have it "all" (from Gruppo Sportivo) I am a happy camper. It better had been 100% untampered with, but alas.

Please notice that there are also "opportunities" so to speak; I mean, this album was not there at Tidal a while ago. So maybe because of MQA it now is ?

Regards,
Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on March 12, 2023, 08:34:34 pm
Addendum :

Notice that I use 2.11 just like you for the Audio PC. But it is the updated version on the Music Server PC that will cause this.

Maybe the below is telling ?

Stupid thing is that I now don't know what I am "skipping" (don't show) as such. So XXHighEnd just finds these and deals with them exactly how I would want. Or maybe a year ago I thought to go skip them because worthless ? ... But I did not do that ? and now insights change and I am even happy with that because I/we can choose (to skip the MQA16 denotes ones) ?

Peter

PS: The Quality : HI_RES is not correct of course. But this is officially in the data provided by Tidal - just saying ...


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on March 13, 2023, 08:10:22 am
Hi Peter

What bit depth is the unicode.... file ?. If it stays at 16 then it is just like switching decoding off in Settings.

With my settings for MQA16 (decoding ON, MQARATE 88200) I get 24bit and this gives a measurable lower noise even though XXHE upsampling ultimately outputs 24bit with or without decoding. Both options giving 44100.

I slightly favour my settings for sound quality but I might be imagining it. I will get someone with younger ears to see if they hear a difference.

Anyway good news if you are able get the MQARATE automatically now.

Best Regards
Colin


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: PeterSt on March 14, 2023, 05:07:44 pm
Hi Colin,

Maybe it wasn't entirely clear : those MQAs are 16 bits and 44.1. There can't be anything in there to do with. And thus it is good that nothing is done with it because it would be illegal if something *is* done with it (like Roon and Tidal Player do).

You can always look in the middle-top of the CD cover (the one shown during playback). If that shows 1411 it is 16 bits and 44.1 KHz.
If it is 24 bits withoutunfold (your last textual example I think) it will show 1411/16*24 = 2116 (2117).
Is it 24 bits unfolded, then 2116 * 2 = 4232. More is not possible because more never unfolds (the made up story/lie). This doesn't prevent that it can be upsampled from there. This shows in the left pane in the XXHighEnd gui. There can also show the native 24/192 if it would be that. Etc. ...

Maybe superfluously : the 24 bits MQA's which don't unfold exist from almost the beginning. Electrified from Boris Blank is such an example (the 24/44.1 version - a 24/96 version exists too). Thus that is an example which will show 2216 in the top of the Coverart. Let's say that these are "deblurred" just the same, but not HiRes.

The ones I show in my last post(s) are 16/44.1 and whether deblurred or not, I thus don't do anything with them because there is nothing to do**. In my version that is ! And they are denoted MQA16. Ad oh, since I now know that (recall it), I now see that I can look for them by searching for MQA16 - see below above the mouse pointer.

**): Deblurring and such does not happen on your side; it happens at the encoding server-side somewhere (ehh, if at all). The decoding is only for the unfolding. Unfolding means : expanding to Hires - which requires 24 bits first.

Peter


Title: Re: Recent Tidal Masters
Post by: coliny on March 14, 2023, 06:07:45 pm
Hi Peter

Something happens when decoding MQA16, attached is 1st track of the Gruppo Sportiv album and it shows decoding to 24bit and lower noise above about 20KHz

Good album
Colin