My second theory is probably wrong but that's because I haven't really had a deep dive in the source code of this program, and probably there are more parameters that have to be included in the program in order to select real mqa.flac files with no pre-rendering and that's why it defaults to 44kHz/24bit. Which might make sense since doing the first two unfolds on the device would probably cost more processing power and have an impact on battery life and overall user experience. My first theory is that Tidal serves the files according to the capabilities reported by the devices at any given moment, so it is possible that it assigns an access token to serve files pre-rendered (with 2 unfolds) when is just a standalone Android, windows or MacOS device, and it probably would assign a different access token that serves totally unrendered MQA files in order to offload the decoding to the external DAC that supports the full decoding. Maybe is because of the nature of the program and the nature of how Tidal actually serves files. flac file but just had to do the last unfold.

Which means the Zen Dac recognized the files were proper MQA files contained into a. mqa.flac file the Walkman app treats it as an MQA file, and also changing the file extension does not work.īecause when I connected the Zen Dac to the Walkman, the Zen Dac showed the same behavior as the Windows Tidal App without the Passthrough MQA option. flac files by the Walkman, but when you provide a proper. Using this program first of all I realized that all songs are. I've realized that because the same songs on android with the Zen dac connected will show up with higher levels of MQA since there's no way to enable nor disable Passthrough MQA with a toggle since on android seems to do it according to the USB device that is connected. I've also used Tidal's app on Windows with an ifi Zen Dac v2 and I realized a long while ago that if you don't set 'Passthrough MQA' Tidal will either serve you the files with 2 unfolds and stream them to the Zen dac to do the last one. I've been using this program via termux on a Walkman NW-A105 which supports MQA decoding but as far as I know sony's implementation is unclear, I suspected the prescence of an Xmos chip from some pictures of the internal components of this 'DAP' which could mean that this Android Walkman can fully decode MQA but there's literally no documentation of it at all, maybe tearing it appart would give me a clear answer on that but I wont do it. I've been playing with this program a little bit and I've found some interesting stuff and I have some theories. This might have something to do with the particular access token you have configured.

When streamed with Audirvana or Hiby from Tidal both player recognize and encrypt the MQA correct with 192kHz/24bit Output from mutagen-inspect for the downloaded file Tested with Supertramp - Crime of the Century (192kHz /Remastered) true 192kHz/24bit record.īoth Player (Audirvana and DAP) play only 48/24. Windows SW Player Audirvana (supports MQA Playback)ĭAP Hiby R2 (supports MQA Playback) Describe the bugĭownloads only 44kHz/24bit files with Tidal HIFI Plus subscription.Įven if Tidal Downloader says it downloads MQA the Output file is 48kHz 24bit. Windows WSL with Ubuntu 20.4 LTS (Tidal-DL) SettingsĪlso tried with Android Token from my SmartphoneĪccessToken refreshed while playing a MQA file on Tidal Desktop App Player

Tidal audirvana