Tidal has announced it will be removing all remaining tracks encoded with the controversial MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) format from its catalog on July 24th, 2024. Any MQA tracks in users’ libraries or playlists will be automatically replaced with the highest quality lossless FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) version available to Tidal.
This move comes nearly a year after Tidal declared the open-source FLAC as its “preferred” format for high-resolution audio, effectively demoting MQA from its previous position. Tidal has been gradually phasing out the proprietary MQA format over the past year.
While Tidal says it has at least CD-quality (16-bit/44.1kHz) FLAC versions for “nearly all” of its current MQA tracks, some tracks may temporarily be replaced with lower-quality FLAC files until higher resolution versions become available.
In addition to dropping MQA, Tidal will also discontinue support for Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format for spatial audio on the same day. Going forward, Dolby Atmos will be the only spatial audio format supported by the streaming service.
The removal of MQA and 360 Reality Audio marks the end of an era for Tidal, which had previously embraced these proprietary formats alongside open standards like FLAC and Dolby Atmos. While MQA has been praised for its ability to deliver high-resolution audio in smaller file sizes, it has also faced criticism for being a lossy (rather than lossless) codec and requiring royalty payments.
With this move, Tidal solidifies its commitment to open-source, lossless audio codecs like FLAC, which offer bit-perfect playback without the need for proprietary encoding or decoding technologies.
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