Is Streaming Music Healthy, @ My House Or Anywhere? 19May17

Spring snow (>10" in Peregrine!) & head cold have allowed more critical listening, some music industry study, audio perfection pursuit and more desk-based stuff. I wrote of TIDAL & MQA before and have now investigated an additional fidelity increment in the streaming music model.

My full MQA decoder DAC arrived today, a ~$200 Meridian Explorer 2. I studied and considered the $2K Mytek Brooklyn DAC/headphone amp but chose to dabble first. The new DAC replaces my Fireflies DAC (32bit/192KHz capable but not MQA compatible) when I play MQA encoded titles. TIDAL software itself can "unfold" MQA bitstreams to 24bit/96KHz (we are used to a "baseline" and very good 320Kbps lossy MP3s/AACs or 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC at <1Mbps), which are very good, but hardware DACs are required to "unfold" MQA to 24bit/192KHz... so I acquired one to see if it made a difference to my ear.

Actually, it did... the dynamics of the tracks I reviewed like the Eagle's Hotel California & Desperado, JB's Late For The Sky, Neko Case's stuff, even Green Day's American Idiot and others were subjectively more dynamic and open through the new DAC (when original material delivered to 192KHz in mastering process). The issue is that we are talking about streamed music above CD quality, and highly dependent on initial mastering processes. This is too small of a distinction for many and thus a very small market - me included though. I could not find Dire Straits "big files" and their 16bit/44.1 KHz stuff like On Every Street is already spectacular; I could not find the track's of many band's I listen to in high def MQA either. Net net on MQA: if you wanna enjoy it sufficiently, use onboard software decode only, in TIDAL, and use a decent processor (gen 1 Surface Pro is fine)... don't bother with a hardware MQA DAC as long you already have at least a 24bit/192KHz external USB DAC.

If the 1st light is blue (shown) it's master authenticated (MQA encoded), if the 2nd LED is lit it's 96 or 88 KHz material, if the 3rd LED is lit it's 192 or 176 KHz material - so I was looking for distinctions delivered by the 3rd LED and initial blue LED, requiring a hardware only unfold (cause again, I can get to 24/96 in just software).

I have attempted several methods to capture the MQA bitstream, from TIDAL, to a file, and play it back. I can play back the normal CD fidelity but can never get these files to "light the LEDs" on the E2 as an MQA stream should. I've dived on the rare few others trying this and they have not succeeded either - I don't know why a bit perfect file of the stream won't fire up the MQA DAC lest the whole identification scheme is in some header - that'd be bogus. Yet the replayed files do not sound as good as the original MQA streams which must alert the DAC and then follow a different decoding through it.

Probably as interesting is that 24bit/192KHz material can be streamed for <20% bandwidth penalty (and no CPU penalty) vs lossy MQA encodings via royalty free FLAC streaming schemes!

Weird that nobody is doing that. Further, as mentioned in prior posts, MQA is proprietary and the licenses paid on remastering tracks with it or selling hardware with it incorporated are going to Meridian - they are signing up some folks but unless they open up a little and allow folks to create their own MQA-encoded music I think it may hit a wall. See this paper for arguments... https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf I really like the idea of an open HD Audio stream but need a decent interface to the database and material. Right now a 24bit/192KHz album download is ~$17 to own, just one month of current services where my access is typically much greater.

More concerning than fidelity beyond CDs for me though is the health of the streaming music industry itself... all, including Spotify, are not profitable and lose tons. At this rate TIDAL and Spotify, pure plays, won't last without significant price increases. The industry needs consolidation and Apple and Google (both seemingly also losing $ on this stuff) can cover losses (and will acquire subscriber bases and companies like SoundCloud and others) and use music streaming, even HD varieties if they desire, to get users to buy other stuff too. Bummer that artist's take is declining and the most significant innovation in music delivery in 15 years yields no profit to intermediaries. See here... https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-09/music-streaming-is-a-hit-but-it-can-t-afford-to-skip-a-beat and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-04/in-apple-spotify-world-soundcloud-can-t-find-room and https://theringer.com/music-streaming-tidal-spotify-apple-music-8df42d20beb7.

Oh yeah, one service, mostly mid-fi, is doing fine... check out bandcamp.com who enables smaller labels and bands to get trials and distribution.

Finally, I did acquire Fidelizer Pro for $60 for my Surface Pro that runs my JRiver Media Center and TIDAL. Fidelizer, deletes non-essential apps and reprioritized processes, even in the core, to assure delivering audio is done as well as possible on the PC. I could investigate all the tweaks and attempt to make them all the time but this is much easier and more assured.

As for streaming, net-net for me... undecided and still trialing services, schemes and hardware.