Chord Qutest with Nucleus? [answered: it works]

[James_O_Brien]

Just wondering if anyone has paired these two yet.
Should there be any issues?
Would the Qutest potentially cause issues with roon’s future MQA implementations?
Thanks

[Martin_Webster]

This scenario is essentially the same as my setup: Roon core and a Chord 2Qute.

Presently, if I play a TIDAL Master that’s 44.1kHz no unfolding occurs and the Chord will display the red light and play just fine–it simply won’t recognise it’s MQA.

If Roon core does the first unfolding then the Chord will receive the 88.2kHz version (yellow indicator.) Again, the Chord will be unaware that it’s MQA but it doesn’t matter since Roon handled the decoding.

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

Roon is currently not able to unfold any MQA content…only pass it on assuming there is no DSP activity on the stream…at least thats the way I understand the current situation.

[James_O_Brien]

Thanks Martin,
I hope this is what will occur when roon rolls out it’s MQA whatever. I guess we won’t definately know until it happens. I guess I was just wondering whether there was a definate known issue at present with roons MQA plans and chord dacs.

[Martin_Webster]

The important point to remember is that MQA is not a new format, so non-MQA devices simply do nothing with the MQA data encoded below the noise floor. So, I don’t foresee an issue and I’m certainly not going to trade-in my Chord 2Qute … unless it’s for another Chord FPGA.

If you’re still concerned, hook up your Qutest to a laptop running TIDAL and see for yourself.

[john (John Iburg)]

Hello @James_O_Brien,

We have many customers using the Nucleus with the gamut of Chord DACs, including the new Qutest, and we have not seen any issues pop-up so far. In fact, I’ve got my Nucleus hooked up to a Hugo 2, and I can only describe my impression of the setup with this emoji:

-John

[James_O_Brien]

Thanks John. That’s great news

[James_O_Brien]

Thanks Martin