Hi,
I am trying to find MQA material in Qobuz. Using Focus nothing is found in any of the categories (from Genre to Channel layout on the far left. So not in album type, other, format, sample rate, bit depth, channel layout etc.
I then searched in the search field and added 2L - The MQA Experience.
When I select in Focus: added in the last day, this album is found.
Still in Focus it does not pop up.
Note: I have synced with Qobuz in settings/services/qobuz/edit
Another note: selecting add on this day and then going trough Focus, it shows Format: Qobuz (1).
Qobuz format however does not seem to equal to MQA so this does not work to focus.
Roon vs 1.9 (build 943) on MacOS
Roon Opitmized Core Kit vs 1.9 (build 943).
This could be a limitation of how Qobuz reports metadata to Roon.
The 2L label supplies all streaming services (e.g. Tidal and Qobuz) with MQA-encoded material, however, I don’t think that Qobuz picks up on this, and reports the fact to Roon. I’ve a number of 2L recordings in my library:
Two of these are 5.1 (surround) recordings that I have purchased direct from 2L, the rest have been added from Qobuz. Notice how all the albums are marked as FLAC, and none are showing the MQA badge.
If I look at the signal path for the 5.1 recordings, they are not MQA-encoded:
However, all of the Qobuz albums (although not marked as being MQA) are in fact MQA-encoded:
Because Qobuz doesn’t report MQA-encoding in the album metadata it passes to Roon, Roon does not mark these albums as MQA albums. This also means that Focus can’t pick out these albums using the MQA focus criterion. However, when the albums are streamed, Roon sees the MQA encoding in the stream, and handles it correctly.
That explains a lot. This means that currently this focus only works for Tidal.
I just tried in the Qobuz app to select on MQA in the catalogue and didn’t see how to do that. However, I couldn’t even find how to select on other features as well in the Qobuz app such as 24 bit.
I hope they make this work soon. Can we indicate this as a desired feature?
Let’s see what the response from a Roon Labs person is first. To me, this limitation is more like a bug than a “nice to have” feature…
However, I suspect that the work will have to be done on the Qobuz side, and they may not see it as an important priority in the grand scheme of things…
