Issue with Qobuz Album "Out There" in Mismatched Format causing device freeze on dCS Vivaldi Upsampler (ref#HYOR7R)

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1

What’s happening?

· Something else

How can we help?

· None of the above

Other options

· Other

Describe the issue

This is a very strange problem. The Qobuz album “Out There” (Christian McBride) is supposed to be in FLAC 96/24 format. See attached screen shot. But when I stream Track 1, the format is identified in Roon as: Qobuz FLAC 96kHz 24bit, 2ch, MQA 1411.2 kHz (!). See second screenshot.

Streaming this file to the Mac Studio works fine, because the Mac has no knowledge of MQA.

But when I stream the same file to the dCS Vivaldi Upsampler, it knocks that device into a state of total confusion. The Vivaldi does try to play the file by doing the “unfold” step, but the Vivaldi DAC apparently cannot “render” 1411.2kHz MQA.

The BIGGER PROBLEM is this: after attempting to stream this file to the Upsampler, that device’s front panel controls are completely frozen, and it is NOT POSSIBLE to restore the Upsampler settings to properly decode whatever (non-MQA) files follow the infamous McBride Track 1 in the queue. The only “fix” for this appears to be powering down the Upsampler and restarting it, after which things return to normal. But that seems like quite a penalty to pay for innocently trying to stream what is supposed to be a “vanilla” FLAC 96/24 file.

A couple additional data points:
Tracks 2-9 on the same album actually stream normally as 96/24 with no MQA “interference”.
The Tidal version of the same album (also listed as 96/24) exhibits the identical problematic behavior when attempting to stream Track 1.

Describe your network setup

This is a very strange problem. The Qobuz album “Out There” (Christian McBride) is supposed to be in FLAC 96/24 format. See attached screen shot. But when I stream Track 1, the format is identified in Roon as: Qobuz FLAC 96kHz 24bit, 2ch, MQA 1411.2 kHz (!). See second screenshot.

Streaming this file to the Mac Studio works fine, because the Mac has no knowledge of MQA.

But when I stream the same file to the dCS Vivaldi Upsampler, it knocks that device into a state of total confusion. The Vivaldi does try to play the file by doing the “unfold” step, but the Vivaldi DAC apparently cannot “render” 1411.2kHz MQA.

The BIGGER PROBLEM is this: after attempting to stream this file to the Upsampler, that device’s front panel controls are completely frozen, and it is NOT POSSIBLE to restore the Upsampler settings to properly decode whatever (non-MQA) files follow the infamous McBride Track 1 in the queue. The only “fix” for this appears to be powering down the Upsampler and restarting it, after which things return to normal. But that seems like quite a penalty to pay for innocently trying to stream what is supposed to be a “vanilla” FLAC 96/24 file.

A couple additional data points:
Tracks 2-9 on the same album actually stream normally as 96/24 with no MQA “interference”.
The Tidal version of the same album (also listed as 96/24) exhibits the identical problematic behavior when attempting to stream Track 1.

2

For me, I only have the bad format information for track 1, all the other tracks on the album play at 24/96.

When I play the first track it appears and plays like normal 24/96 for me. My DAC doesn’t decode MQA. 1411.2 is not a valid MQA format.

Instead of downsampling, you could set Roon to do the decoding and rendering itself, so it only sends final “non-MQA” output to the dCS.

3

Doesn’t solve the problem, in my opinion. Are you supposed to remember six months from now that you need to change your device settings either in Roon or on the Vivaldis stack just to play this one anomalous track… and then also take the time to change those settings back immediately afterwards? That’s the opposite of user-friendly. The reality is I’d still end up with a frozen Upsampler nine times out of ten. But, thanks!

4

True, but it does give you a workaround for a ‘bad’ Qobuz file (that Qobuz should fix) that upsets the dCS (which dCS should fix).

Unless you have mqa sources that you actually want the dCS to process, I’m not sure there’s any downside to leaving the Roon settings as suggested anyway.

5

Actually, I do have MQA content in my Local Library (independent of Tidal/Qobuz), which I want the Vivaldi stack to process properly when called upon. And without having to dynamically change settings back and forth to defend against corrupt files arriving from Roon.

6

Well - all Roon is doing is passing on the file that arrives from Qobuz (orTidal for that matter - I tried it) so it’s unfair to blame Roon, and it’s unclear what we should expect Roon to do with a file that’s tagged with an apparently invalid mqa format.

Have you tried turning on the Roon ‘core decoder’ option to see what happens? I suspect nothing different; it doesn’t appear to do a decode step for me - it is an invalid format after all - but doesn’t lock anything up either, and may pass the 96/24 stream without mqa signalling. I can’t tell - none of my available endpoints support mqa at all.

Edit - it claims to play at 96/24 from the Tidal app on a pc - but I guess that’s expected…

9

Hi @Charles_Craiglow,

Thanks for the report!

As @AndyR has correctly mentioned -

There isn’t anything we can do immediately, but we’ll certainly run it up the flagpole and get it corrected at it’s source. Thanks for your patience in the meantime! :raised_hands:

11

Understand. Would be helpful if Roon could get the Tidal/Qobuz files fixed. Whatever you can do would be appreciated. Thanks.

14

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