Quote:
Originally Posted by j3brow
Exactly. It’s a fools errand to spit in the face of MQA. We are gaining access to the master files. The other formats will still exist for quite some time and consumers will decide what’s right for them. For those that want the highest resolution, it’s now available for $20/month, and soon will feature a nearly endless library.
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You may be right that it’s a fool’s errand to spit in the face of MQA, and I don’t think that’s anyone’s intent. For Tidal, streaming MQA may be the best solution, especially if you have limited bandwidth. However in Europe you can already get the high res from Qobuz without the need for MQA, and this will probably be available in the US this year or next.
My caution flag (not panic, or spitting) is that the ultimate stated goal for both MQA and the majors who have signed on is not just for streaming, but for all downloads and CDs to be MQA-encoded. If we’re gaining access to the master files, we’re only gaining access to what a single company, MQA, has “certified” as a master, and only if we use their proprietary key to unlock it. An MQA “master” means that the studio or label has paid MQA a fee to encode their master, so that you can pay a fee through your equipment purchase to decode it. Some labels, including many classical labels, are already providing “master” files for download without any MQA certification required or licensing fees, or any encoding or decoding other than the open-source flac. It seems to be primarily the major labels who are concerned about piracy and are signing on to this technology, not for sound quality reasons, but to protect their masters.