AudioQuest Devices are also not recognized till date. May be USB A devices which connect via OTG cable are not recognized I guess.
Yes, MQA certified. Darko Audio also confirmed the same issue.
I'm using Tidal Lossless here and MQA isn't exclusive to Tidal. It's an interesting thing. It's lossy and each file is about half or 2/3rds the size of a regular lossless file, but, and here is the important but, MQA delivers an experience quite different to just pure audio. As simply as I can put it, it plays to your ears a track as the artist intended it to sound. Not how someone produced it in some basement of Sony Columbia.
I used Tidal first in 2016 iirc but not sure. Back then MQA sounded way more pleasing to my ears compared to now. Now since they are more interested in selling their MQA 16x unfolding hardware. I feel on normal systems MQA is lacking punch and dynamics when compared to Qobuz. On dedicated desktop grade hardware with 16x unfolding maybe MQA can surpass it but that's a different rabbit hole all together than portable world where difference is not that huge between stuff like IEMs for example.
Once you enter the bottomless pit that is audiophile hardware, that's a rabbit hole you can never extricate yourself from.
Imo an audio format like MQA is hardware limited and thus always needs a greater hardware investment against Qobuz which is playing at maximum capability even on a puny little MacBook. But I would like to know more about your Desktop setup, maybe I can learn something.
I use MQA most often in my car which runs active components in all four doors, 2 x 4 channel amplifiers for the component and 1 mono amplifier for the subwoofer. Certain Pioneer decks are pretty capable all things considered and the deck is supplied audio from an iPad that's got Tidal installed. The entire system is tuned for SQ and is running flat EQs but sounds brilliant.
In tou scenario flac is still limited by the shitty dac on a mac. No matter what you do sound quality is directly proportional to the quality of the hardware. If you care about it or capable of hearing that difference is a different question altogether
A DAC does not need to support MQA for you to listen to MQA tracks. MQA is more software than hardware from my understanding. A home theatre that supports MQA just has the software on it's SOC. Yes, it's proprietary and probably expensive to license so not everyone supports it, but that doesn't mean you can't. The fact I don't have it on my home theatre while casting might have more to do with the Tidal instant application that loads on a Chromecast or the limitations of the processing power on a Chromecast device. Thats just my theory though, I may be wrong.
Yeah I've seen that. There's been a lot held against MQA and as I've said, it is lossy. However, for some music I've heard, it sounds better than the lossless versions of the same ones on different output gear. Honestly, it's kind of how valve amps add a warmth to audio that's more pleasing than the cold hard truth of 24 bit FLACs output from a digital amp. If that makes any sense. Music and what sounds good is entirely subjective. If there ever was anything definitive, there wouldn't be as many high end audio brands out there at all.
You first said it is hardware limited !!! and now that you have actually done some research before spouting more shit you have finally changed your statement to software limited and you are calling other's judgment shitty? Talk about glass houses
Imagine doing that instead of saying fruit fruit in every sentence without knowing anything else!!! Why would you want to actually research instead of saying a fruit's name over and over and over (<<sarcasm)
Such a simple thing often so difficult for many folks to understand.
