Tidal Expands MQA Catalog Available for Tidal Masters Streaming

Music and entertainment streaming platform Tidal announced that it added millions of tracks in MQA from Warner Music Group to its Tidal Masters catalog. According to Tidal, MQA users have doubled since 2019 and its Tidal HiFi subscribers are now streaming 40% more tracks in Master Quality than last year. Originally created mostly with music from Universal Music Group, the now expanded MQA catalog required an update on Tidal's servers to better support continuous streaming of music in the highest quality level.

Amazon Music announced a partnership with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to remaster thousands of songs and albums to be streamed in its Ultra High Definition premium tier music service, upgrading the digital streaming audio quality of these songs to the highest available. Music from Eagles, Marvin Gaye, Nirvana, Tom Petty, Diana Ross, Linkin Park, J. Cole, Waylon Jennings, Ramones, 2 Chainz, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and more, is now available in exclusive remasters on Amazon Music HD.

Music technology specialist MQA (Master Quality Authenticated), the music technology company founded by Bob Stuart, announced that it has hired music executive Mike Jbara as CEO. Jbara joins MQA from Warner Music Group, where he has held roles for 20 years, from president and CEO of WEA Corp, to president of Warner’s Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) and, most recently, as EVP of Technology and Business Process. In addition to day-to-day leadership responsibility, Jbara will sit on the Board of MQA Ltd.

This year’s High End show in Munich was a decisive moment for Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), the technology and the UK-based private company. Adopted by an increasing number of hardware and content partners, the revolutionary end-to-end technology that delivers master quality audio in a file that’s small enough to stream or download is now closer to become mainstream following the announcement that Warner Music Group and MQA have entered a long-term licensing deal.

Why is it so easy to find an audio enthusiast claiming that his new headphones, DAC, preamplifier, or pair of speakers “completely changed his perception of the music” and “made it possible to hear things in a totally new way,” and yet so many consumers cannot actually hear the difference when listening to high-resolution audio?