With MQA (Grasp High quality Authenticated) being answerable for the lossless audio that you simply at the moment stream on Tidal going below, you would be forgiven for questioning what was happening. Now we all know, though it may not be fairly as clear as we might have hoped.
Lengthy seen as one of many best music streaming services for individuals who need the easiest in audio high quality, Tidal makes use of MQA because the format for its hi-res audio. However following the information that MQA isn’t any extra CEO Jesse Dorogusker discovered himself dealing with questions concerning the state of play when collaborating in a Reddit AMA. His solutions supplied readability but additionally somewhat little bit of confusion.
Hello-res FLAC is in, however so is MQA music as nicely
It was at all times going to be the case that questions can be requested – it was an AMA in any case – so it appears Dorogusker was ready. He stated that Tidal can be “introducing hi-res FLAC for our HiFi Plus subscribers quickly,” including that the format is “lossless and an open customary.” He did warn that the recordsdata will likely be massive, however he additionally famous that Tidal will “offer you controls to dial this up and down primarily based on what is going on on.”
That is all excellent news, however particulars have been missing by way of what occurs to the MQA catalogue already current. What Hi-Fi reached out to Tidal to seek out out.
“Our current MQA catalogue will proceed to be obtainable on the platform,” the response stated. That would seem to recommend that MQA and FLAC recordsdata will coexist, no less than within the brief time period. Dorogusker recommended that FLAC help was coming quickly, though no agency timescales have been given for what that really means. We’ll have to attend for extra official phrase on timings or, simply as seemingly, for FLAC help to go dwell earlier than we are able to discover out for certain.
