Audirvana

[Yves from Genève]

(01-06-2017, 11:14 PM)curiosity a écrit : je n'ai pas écouté encore de musique au format MQA. 

En revanche, je possédais plusieurs lecteur CD Meridian avec convertisseur et il ne faisait pas vraiment de prouesse par rapport à un audiomat plus vieux de 15ans, j'espère pour eux que ce format va plus leur réussir

J'ai lu beaucoup d'informations et de commentaires sur ce nouvel encodage. Comme souvent lorsqu'on met en évidence une nouvelle technologie avec une approche révolutionnaire, une pluie de doutes s'abat sur la toile, les experts se déchirent et les pontes de Meridian sourient.

Je suis curieux de nature et comme j'ai la chance d'avoir un abonnement HiFi chez Tidal, j'ai vite pu constater que la signature sonore de cette technologie est vraiment d'une qualité plus qu'agréable à mes oreilles. Je suis en train d'écouter le dernier Dream Theater et je suis soufflé par ce que mes oreilles réceptionnent (cela sur un système HiFi basique). Demain, je ferai la même écoute sur mon système principal.

Voici ce que Chris (Computer Audiophile) écrit sur son blog et dans l'attente qu'Audirvana se dote du software
"Before leaving the hotel room this morning, I was able to release the good news that, effective immediately, Tidal was streaming 30,000 tracks in MQA, and MQA decoding was now available in software. Both of these are big news. Tidal was ready to go with MQA long ago, but the record labels just didn't have the content to deliver. Once the number of titles hit critical mass, Tidal flipped the switch on Master Quality. MQA is included with HiFi Tidal subscriptions for now, we'll have to see if there is an added cost for Master Quality at a later date.


It would be strange for Tidal to stream MQA without the ability for its customers to decode the content. Thus, the Tidal desktop app can now fully decode MQA. if one guy can do it why can't others? now they can. Audirvana announced it will soon release an updated version of its software supporting software decoding. I received word from Roon that it too will enable software decoding. According to Roon,"Roon is more complex than other audio software products (especially in terms of multi-room, Roon Ready, and other supported streaming protocols) so the MQA team has had to undertake some additional engineering effort to make MQA decoding work in the Roon world. Both teams are working on it and we will ship as soon as technically possible."

Let me take a minute to explain what this is and why it's a big deal. First, MQA must be decoded for listeners to hear the full quality of the file. Think of it as an SACD with a CD layer. People needed an SACD player to decode the SACD layer of the disc, otherwise the regular CD layer would be played. While not exactly the same, the concept is similar.

When MQA launched, we were told publicly that MQA would only be decoded in hardware (unless played on a mobile device). This meant that people would be required to purchase new MQA enabled DACs to get the full benefit of the technology. The announcement of software decoding means that people only need an app that decodes MQA rather than hardware.

I asked a very high end DAC manufacturer what it saw as the differences between hardware decoding in its DACs and software decoding in an app like Roon (before outputting to its DACs). The answer was a refreshing, "there should be no difference."

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