Rafe Arnott

Listening to MQA on-the-go just got easier with the announcement that digital music-streaming service TIDAL brought their iOS mobile-app code in-line to handle the software unfolding (24-bit/96kHz) of the ultra-high resolution Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) core signal for its Apple-centric user base. Android bassheads got their fix a couple months ago.

In my experience choosing cabling to loom up your hi-fi has been a protracted exercise in A/B listening tests and like eating too much pasta, can leave you feeling a bit sleepy and in need of a nice espresso. That said, in the digital-playback world of the audiophile – or music lover as I prefer to call those with a bent for high fidelity – cables can make a noticeable difference to system performance in my experience.

Streamlining your box count to get something that can do most or all of what the bulk of those separates do is fast becoming the holy grail of digital audio for many.

Remote updates strike again. Twenty years ago, the very idea that we’d allow a corporation unfettered access to our digital entertainment products, music hardware, or our refrigerators or televisions would have seemed positively Orwellian.