Tidal Music

HiFi is way better than premium...

MQA, from a technical standpoint, may or may not be your cup of tea. In theory though, things marked MQA have a better mastering pedigree, so whether you listen to them with or without an MQA DAC, you may still get a benefit. Given the 500K titles lost in the MQA fire, your mileage may vary.


As others noted, Qoboz has high res without MQA requirement and so does AmazonHD but your playback path options are pretty limited.

Aside from the sound quality, access to a wide range of musical content by itself is worth the price of the subscription. 

I have Tidal and Qobuz.  I listen to Qobuz more, turning to Tidal when I can't find something on Qobuz or if I want to listen to one of Tidal's "My Mix" playlists (they are usually good).  I have one DAC with MQA and listen mostly with a DAC with no MQA.  It sounds as good, if not better on the DAC with no MQA, mostly because it's a better DAC and a more resolving system. 

You can hear differences between MQA and no MQA.  Are they better?  Worse?  It's subjective.  Will you hear a track that isn't MQA and say to yourself "that sounds awful!".  I doubt it.  Will you jump out of your seat because the MQA version is so much better?  I doubt it.  More depends on how it was recorded, mastered, your system, etc. than whether it is MQA or not.

I have Tidal and my computer/server running Roon handles opening the MQA files up to 24/96.  Those files are then streamed to my Ayre DAC which is not MQA.  They sound very good.