Meridian Explorer 2 MQA renderer only?

sohe68 · February 18, 2019, 5:47pm

I thought I’d try letting Roon do the first unfold and a Meridian Explorer 2 do the final rendering as opposed to the Meridian doing both.
However, I can’t seem to achieve this, is there something I’m missing here?
The DAC’s attached to a Pi running Ropieee, but the same behavior goes when I connect it straight to a computer running Roon remote.

noris · February 18, 2019, 6:41pm

Hi @sohe68,

You’ll want to right click the Explorer2 zone next to the Volume Controls (bottom right) -> Device Setup -> MQA Capabilities -> Render Only.

Thanks,
Noris

sohe68 · February 18, 2019, 7:35pm

Thanks, yes did this already. Changed from “Decoder and renderer” to “Renderer only”.

john · February 18, 2019, 8:01pm

Hello @sohe68,

Due to a firmware limitation in the Meridian Explorer 2, the DAC only supports MQA unfolding when sent a bit-perfect un-decoded MQA stream. If the audio is put through the MQA Core Decoder before being sent to the device, the Explorer 2 will not complete the MQA Rendering process.

-John

seagull · February 18, 2019, 8:09pm

I’m seeing the following Signal Path (RPi 3B+ powered by RoPieee):

There is an additional step: Preserving MQA Signaling.
Device Settings = Decoder & Renderer.

sohe68 · February 18, 2019, 8:22pm

OK, that explains it then. I seem to recall that rendering works in combination with the Tidal desktop app doing the first unfold, but I might be mistaken. If so, is this a limitation with Roon?

sohe68 · February 18, 2019, 8:25pm

I think this is because you have DSP engaged with a Crossfeed filter.

seagull · February 18, 2019, 8:27pm

Now with Device Settings = Render only.

and with DSP disabled and Decoder & Renderer which will display the blue led.

system · February 18, 2020, 8:27pm

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