I have Googled several times. Have searched thru my Audiolab 8300CDQ and tried to search here. All to no no avail.
When I play MQA files with ROON it shows up on my Audiolab 8300cdq’s (DAC) display as a OFS 44.1khz file. I have searched as best I can to to find out what OFS means.
On Audirvana and MC26 these files show as MQA 192KHZ on the DAC.
I know someone will know the answer. Oh, and under Digital Filter, MQA is there to choose. So I did. It made no difference to display. Have not noticed it MQA as a filter before.
If you check this thread, Peter from Lumin explains why you see OFS, instead of MQA.
Essentially, it’s because in Roon, Audiolab Device Setup, you have the MQA Capabilities set to allow Roon to do the initial decoding and then letting the Audiolab do the Rendering (ie Render Only).
You need to set the Audiolab MQA setting as Decoder and Renderer.
Typically, I left out an im portant piece of of info. I have always set it to both decoder and renderer as I didn’t understand this and still don’t. I understand that Roon does one unfold and the DAC does the other unfold? Or have I misunderstood that too?
I have no idea what OFS means. If it means that the files is still playing back as MQA that is okay but don’t understand why it doesn’t say so.
Using the programs that do show MQA as the output, we decided there was very little, if any, difference to our CD quality files, nor 192khz files so we won’t be buying all the MQA files I had lined up.
If you’re not using DSP / volume leveling / zone grouping, Roon will send the raw MQA without decoding to a “Decoder and Renderer” DAC. With any of those features in use, Roon will do the MQA Core decoding.
From user point of view, OFS display means the same thing as MQA display. You are getting the full MQA decoding either way.
TIDAL customer service was appalling. They couldn’t answer a simple question. Kept giving me the run around. There were two copies of the same album available, one more expensive than the other. No information as to why nor what the files were other MP3 or FLAC. I bought the album that cost more. All it was was cd 44.1khz file. Had I known I woiuld not have bought. I informed them that I was not happy that they gave no information about what they were selling. All I got was another email suggesting I contact customer service!
In the end choosing between Qobuz and Tidal was very easy.
If by using DSP you mean using the equalizers etc, I am.
As I am getting MQA even when it says OFS then there isn’t a problem.
I am just going to have to give this a proper li.stren tomorrow during the day so I can hear it louder OR maybe listen on my Grado’s and see what they do for me.,
Initially I am pretty sure we BOTH thought there was obvious imporvement with MQA.
In digital signal processing FS is a common abreviation for sampling frequency. My guess is that OFS means “Original Sampling Frequency”. But that is just a guess.
Nowadays I have a TEAC NT-505 with internal MQA handling. In my configuration Roon will send the original TIDAL MQA signal 44.1 or 48 to TEAC. This information is shown in the display of TEAC.
Internally TEAC will use MQA to provide HiRes signal.
Only by pressing the button “info” on the remote control. TEAC will show in the display that this upsampling of signal takes place.
In your case, Audiolab 8300CDQ may well show correctly the raw input signal in its display while omitting the upsampling that is done inside its “networkplayer” before the DAC.
Of course, this idea/suggestion may be incorrect in your case.