How can I display the "MQA badge"?

[Dlwr32722]

There used to be a badge on the album’s cover, and it’s gone for some while, after I updated roon to 1.8.
Does anybody know how to restore it?

[joel]

Settings → Customize Album Display. There is a slider for the MQA badge.

[Dlwr32722]

joel
Of course I did that.
Still, badge doesn’t show up.

[Jan_Willem (- Loves vibrating air -)]

In MacOS it’s ok:

[Dlwr32722]

Yeah, I use a PC for the core, another PC and two iPads to control them.

[BrianW (Brian)]

Those settings are per remote. Change one and it doesn’t affect the others. Could that be a reason?

[Jan_Willem (- Loves vibrating air -)]

Strange. You must set the option on all devices. Maybe that’s not the case?
Hopefully @support has the solution

[Dlwr32722]

This specific file I ripped from a CD, you may see it is a MQA-CD.

However, the MQA badge doesn’t appear on the album cover (it’s the one in the middle).

I don't have other MQA sources at this time, and I was wondering why the badge disappeared as it was there with the older roon version.

[BrianW (Brian)]

There’s something awry because it’s not stating MQA format underneath either, as mine does

[Jan_Willem (- Loves vibrating air -)]

Maybe because it’s a WAV file? Mine are all FLACs. I don’t know…

[BrianW (Brian)]

This post…

MQA will decode file with extension .FLAC and not .WAV

When you rip MQA-CD into .FLAC, .WAV or convert any MQA downloads from .FLAC to ALAC, the tag info will be lost. Roon will read the tag and display just below the album art (after initial scanning). However, when playing back actual file, the signal path will look at the embedded markers under the noise floor for authentication. To display the info just below the album art after initial scanning , tag the following: ’Encoder’ 'MQAEncode’ ’ORIGINALSAMPLERATE’ 'xxxxxx’ Where xxxxxx …

…looks helpful.

It seems Roon requires the tags (which you lost by ripping to .wav) for display purposes, though not for decoding.

[Dlwr32722]

BrianW
That may help.
I’ll make a flac file later, and tell you whether it worked or not.

[Dlwr32722]

You guys are awesome! :))

[Dlwr32722]

This is a follow-up.

I noticed that simply moving and moving back the folder that contains the file seems to damage the MQA tag (i.e. the badge and file type retrogresses to a plain FLAC).

So, what I did was to use foobar’s function:
Import the files on foobar and select all of them at once,
look into the “properties,”
then, press the “Tools” button at the lower-left,
choose “Remove tags” and “Yes”
Voila! You get the MQA tag back, even if your files are in WAV format.

TBH, I’m not really sure how this worked, but at least this seems to be a general way to solve the issue.

Hopefully, this will help others who have/will have the same problem.

[ffk (Doctors Practice. Plumbers Perform.)]

@Dlwr32722

I don’t have other MQA sources at this time, and I was wondering why the badge disappeared as it was there with the older roon version.

You’re missing 3 metadata tags in the wav files. Not sure all 3 are needed but if you add dummy ones it should display correctly. Add them with kid3 or similar program.

Not sure the Encoder and MQAENCODER tags need specific info, I’d just put MQAEncode or leave them blank if it will let you. The last one is ORIGINALSAMPLERATE.

Also you can convert those WAV to flac, as long as you use the default flac compression they should still be seen as mqa. I think I used xld to try this before and it worked well.

[Richard_Parker]

it’ll be nice if the MQA badge has a color on it.

Blue for MQA Studio and Green for MQA only

[RoonFan (CP)]

@Richard_Parker

it’ll be nice if the MQA badge has a color on it.

I concur. I posted a Feature Request here: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/color-underline-highlight-badge-for-mqa-and-hi-res-files/232462

Please vote if you like the idea.