List of Roon compatible MQA Renderers

With Roon 1.5 MQA, it’s rather desirable for a MQA DAC to be able to render the MQA Core signal (first unfold) with or without DSP applied. I’ll start with a list of devices that I know to be working, and let others add other devices.

Some MQA Full Decoder DAC can accept the MQA Core signal from Roon 1.5, some cannot. For those that do, setting their MQA Capabilities to “Decoder and Renderer” or “Renderer only” should work.

Here’s a list of MQA Full Decoder DAC that are known to work:

  • Lumin Roon Ready product line
  • Mytek MQA DAC
  • Pro-Ject S2

Some MQA DAC only perform the second stage of MQA Rendering, but cannot perform the first unfold to MQA Core by themselves, and have to rely on computer software like Roon 1.5, Tidal desktop app, Audirvana, or MQA Transport (such as Lumin U1). For these MQA Renderers, MQA Capabilities should be set to “Renderer Only” so that Roon will perform the MQA Core decoding.

Here’s a list of MQA Renderers:

  • Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Series 2 MQA
  • NAD & Bluesound (Renderer-only when using Roon)
  • iFi MQA DAC
  • DragonFly Red / Black
3 Likes

Peter—My NAD M12 nor my Node2 is not rendering. I’ve tested many Roon setting combinations and they all result in playing the first decode only.
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This is from Bluesound Support:
Bluesound Players are fully qualified MQA playback devices as such we can confirm that any MQA audio coming from sources such as Tidal or from a network share to the Players will playback and decode in MQA quality.

They have been certified by Roon Labs to act as Roon music endpoints only

If Roon already decodes the MQA file, we’ll simply play the file(we aren’t altering it in any way).

Kyle F,
BluOS Support Crew Technical and Integration Analyst - Level 2
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Peter, can you explain what it will take for Bluesound to play nice with Roon? And Many thanks for all your contributions.

Not specific to any brand. For a RAAT endpoint to support full MQA decoding, it requires:

  • Support RAAT 1.1.20 (released before July 2017) or later
  • Based on the metadata provided by RAAT, setup music data routing to MQA decoder / renderer or PCM audio engine or DSD audio engine
  • Make sure the DAC display and/or LED reflect MQA authentication status
  • To enable DAC-side MQA signal path display in Roon 1.5, signal path reporting needs to be enhanced (even if not doing this, it does not affect the actual MQA music playback)
  • Testing

Hello @Gary_Evans,

At this time, it is not possible to utilize Bluesound’s MQA functionality while streaming to the device from Roon. Bluesound is aware of the issue, but have not shared any information or timelines on when to expect a possible fix.

-John

Thanks to Peter and John.

Either you get a job at Bluesound or I purchase a Lumin streamer👍

3 Likes

iFi iDSD nano with the latest firmware also works fine as an MQA renderer with Roon.

EDIT: iFi was already mentioned but just wanted to point out that the older devices also work with their latest firmware.

PS Audio DirectStream Dac with Bridge II card, also DirectStream Jr. with built in Bridge, both do the rendering after Roon first Unfold and with or without DSP processing. DAC shows the final MQA unfold on the LED screen when active.

Thanks for the update, but according to this thread it seems that PS Audio expects “interim improvement release ready at month’s end” as of 4 days ago:

Previous discussions within this forum:


according with https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360006058273-Introducing-BluOS-2-18-0, BluOS 2.18.0 introduces “Ability to play MQA files via Roon”. Setting the Node 2 to “Decoder and Renderer” will now allow full MQA playback from ROON?

The list is updated. It should be set to “Renderer Only”.

@wklie
Thanks so much! When you refer to the “Myth MQA DAC” are you referring to all their models, including the Liberty, which is the only one I could afford?

I believe so based on what people reported here. It’s best to confirm with the manufacturer before you make any purchase.

Thanks! Point taken.

Although I did try to get clarification from Meridian about the E2 and – at least through Meridian North America – that was unsuccessful. It was not until @john patiently walked me through it, that I even understood all the issues involved.