Any timing for the Vivaldi stack update?
We’re wrapping up the development work on it. In fact I’m installing a new build right now to test the eradication of a few final bugs.
The Vivaldi is likely the first integrated multi-box solution that has implemented MQA and that brought up some questions as to how and when we display different MQA indications (and on which component). This required a consult with MQA and a couple of additional cycles to develop and test the control and display logic. The code that does the MQA decoding and rendering is solid and has been working very well since early April.
It’s really close at this point. We were hoping to release this week, but due to the above as well as a regression in another product we lost a couple of weeks of focused time on this product.
I have read on this forum about some issues with the Rossin MQA update, eg, dropouts at the start of a MQA track and issues between an external decoder and the DAC renderer. Have those learnings been addressed in this upcoming update?
This is not an issue with the Vivaldi Upsampler / DAC nor the Vivaldi One. The Rossini fix is in process and will be released this summer.
Under most normal situations this won’t be a problem. As it stands now this only comes up if you force the Roon core to always do the decoding, but do not employ any of Roon’s DSP functions. This one was identified within the last couple of weeks in the latter stages of 1.5 testing, but it’s a corner case which should never be experienced in a real-world scenario. Regardless we’re working on a maintenance release this summer and will address the issue across the board then.
Under normal use cases (Roon sends MQA stream to Upsampler for decoding or Roon does decoding with DSP) then everything is working well.
. Thanks for the great customer support.
This is bizarre. Is it because Roon would not remove & reattach the MQA metadata to the stream as it does when it applies DSP? But wouldn’t this metadata flow untouched if it didn’t apply DSP in the first place?
There’s a lot going on under the hood and it’s a little more complicated than that. If you setup the device as a renderer only the Roon core sets the MQA metadata in the MQA stream a certain way. There’s no issue with that, but it exposed an otherwise unknown bug in our network firmware in which a decoded stream with metadata set that way does not get properly processed by the network card. The stream still plays, but the MQA renderer doesn’t engage. It’s not an issue with a stream that has Roon DSP applied as the core sets the metadata slightly differently in that case.
That doesn’t explain why it would work when DSP is on.
Literally two bits in the stream metadata are different and that’s all it takes.
So I could literally add eq and leave it flat to make it work without changes to the stream?
I honestly don’t know and am not in a position to test it right now. It works fine if you set the MQA capabilities to “decoder and renderer” as that uses the MQA core decoder in the dCS device. The issue only comes up if someone is (incorrectly) assuming that the MQA decoder that Roon uses is somehow different than the one that dCS uses and therefore wants to force the Roon decoder to run all the time. In other words, we’re discussing a misbehavior in a use case that will likely never be used in real life.
Any news on the Vivaldi stack MQA firmware update?
It’s currently going through MQA certification then we have our internal verification process to complete.
Thanks for the rapid response. Has there been an issue that slowed down the release as it seemed very close 3 weeks ago? Appreciate whatever you can share…
No issues with the Vivaldi or the code itself. This is a complex release and we want to be sure that we get it right.
1 Like
Any updates on Vivaldi MQA release??
Thx
Scott
Both the Vivaldi Upsampler and DAC received their MQA certifications about a week ago and both products need to go through our internal verification prior to release of the software. The Vivaldi DAC is first in line and is nearing completion. The Vivaldi Upsampler is next and will take 2 - 3 weeks to complete verification.
We’ll be releasing the updates for the two products separately so it’s possible that the update for Vivaldi DAC will be available toward the end of this week.
2 Likes
Is dCS waiting to install the DAC and Upsampler updates together?
Any good news ?
We are ready ?
Patience is a virtue for Vivaldi stack owners.