The solution is of course, ROON. Fixes the organization problems 
of both TIDAL and Qobuz.
Of course it may cause a wallet problem.
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After many years, I have also dropped my Spotify family account and am thinking about dropping it all together.
The only benefit with Spotify (to me) is that it is so well integrated into just about any streamer and intelligent speaker etc., although Tidal has caught up on most modern streamers.
I still have a couple of Marantz network players that the wife uses that don’t do anything other than Spotify. I can stream to them via DLNA but asking the wife to do more than press one button for anything technological is a chore lol.
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Did some testing on Tidal’s ‘MAX’ update today. Seems they are indeed playing hires lossless for many tracks, and confirmed bitperfect vs the qobuz version on all the ones I tested. BUT, many tracks which show as ‘MAX’ are still just MQA batch processed from the 44.1khz original, with no way to play lossless at all.No indicator in the client as to whether you’re playing lossless vs MQA which is frustrating. If your DAC detects MQA it should tell you though.Over time this issue will fade as Tidal has stated they’re going through their library and removing the batch-processed MQA to restore the lossless 44.1khz versions, but no idea how long this will take. Cool that lossless hires is available at last though!
Also, Tidal Connect endpoints are still streaming MQA even when hires is available, so it seems those need an update too.
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Update: According to an industry contact, Tidal HiRes support on Connect endpoints, Roon and most other stuff besides the official Tidal client, will need new API changes from Tidal that are not expected until later this year…
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So 1. has happened or happening, over 2.
If the liquidator of the MQA company looks at the asset list, there will just be the encoding/decoding algorithms, wonder what’s the present value now without Tidal’s continued usage.
Is anyone interested in open sourcing the IP?
BTW
From a liquidator is not that hard, straight forward asset purchase of the IP. The liquidator is bound to get value from the assets, to then use to offset any debts held.
The irony is that Spotify will sooner or later follow through on its promise to go high-res and render Tidal, Qobuz, and Roon EOL and then we’ll all be right back where we started. lol Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
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Yeah Tidal has clearly decided they’re just going to drop MQA. MQA marketing has been all but totally removed and they’re also removing MQA content now.
Without that, the value of MQA in terms of potential future value or ‘snowballing’ of adoption is extremely low and I can’t imagine there will be many parties interested in it. Especially with the reputation. The only part of value would possibly be the bluetooth codec but given as allegedly the bluetooth SIG refused to incorporate it and the benefits of it are completely unproven, that would be a struggle anyway.
I do hope it gets open sourced. Mostly because the source code shows quite clearly how so much of their marketing was just complete bunk and they absolutely knew it (obviously). Which actually is an interesting issue in and of itself. I don’t know the legal ins and outs, but given what I’ve seen, I cannot imagine those behind MQA would want it to become public and I would not be surprised if the investor themselves or even Bob Stuart/another director sought to retain ownership (directly or indirectly) of the IP solely to prevent some of the inner workings from becoming public and possibly opening them up to other parties seeking recourse against previous claims that would then be able to be demonstrated as false/misleading.
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This will be the interesting twists & turns over the next while. The decision on who the IP is sold to will be subject to the Liquidator and a Committee of Inspection, which can be formed following the initial meetings of the Creditors.
If a former investor or founder wishes to purchase the IP asset it has to be undertaken through these channels, and the decision published in the Liquidation report. Effectively they would need to be the highest bidder. So if there is something to hide, it may cost them.
One previous company I worked for, went into Liquidation, owing the remaining staff unpaid salary, holiday, expenses, Pension payments & redundancy. You suddenly have to learn fast about this, to stay ahead of the curve and understand your rights & the process. I requested the formation of the Committee and a seat on it, just to ensure the former Director wasn’t able to ‘phoenix’ the company with an inside asset purchase of the IP & existing customers, reforming & washing away the existing debts.
Did get most of what was owed back for staff, through the process, liquidation protection fund, court action on the oustanding Pension payments etc. but not a process I would want to do again.
Also did try and buy the IP as part of the fire sale, through another company, but time is not a friend of SaaS products, existing customers tend to sort themselves out with alternative solutions, once the existing contracts are broken due to insolvency.
As Tidal has done here.
Wonder what Warner and some of the other Distributors providing MQA encoded content had as License Agreements with MQA Ltd? Any value in these?
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The business of audio codec licensing is a tricky and fascinating one, as I’ve learned from years of following how Dolby & DTC impact the market. MQA is no different, except that they don’t actually offer anything of value (while Dolby & DTC do). Good on them for trying, though. 
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So MQA based content is going to around for a little longer
No doubt. Because the files and the codec are out there and it takes time and money to change that. But will MQA get any more licensing and any new clients? Probably not, unless they do something really interesting really fast.
You should always be suspect of any compression algorithm that charges a fee for licensing. Very few compression algorithms have any there there. Just watch Silicon Valley. ;)lol
If literally fraudulent technology, I suppose MQA has negative value upon liquidation. Some were upset about the price increases of hyped and bundled MQA, as they never intended to use it. However, if MQA was broken from the start and known to be useless…will there be class action lawsuits to get refunds?
Depends on the Warranties included in the Licensing Agreements, they’re also be an element of the Licensee undertaking their own Due Diligence and technical assessment, and accepting that the deliverable did as described.
In terms of Public cases, MQA Ltd did not sell to the public and contract with them, so any action would be on the Licensee, i.e. Tidal
Despite all the talk
Playing in MQA96 from local source, unpacked by Roon Core to 24/96, streamed to SonoreUPnP bridge to my Naim NDS player as WAV 24/96, sounds excellent.
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I used TIDAL for a few years, using iFi gear to unpack, later ROON. Much of it sounded pretty good. It’s just that I’d rather have original high-res FLAC files. And what sounded good was stuff that came out when some artists where taking extra care with their masters just for MQA release. The reprocessed and volume-bumped 44.1 samples didn’t sound any better than original redbook to my ear, once I equalized volume for comparison.
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I dumped Tidal a long time ago. To me, of course its just me, Qobuz sounds better on my gear.