Here’s a question I should have answered myself long ago, but each time I look at it, I’m still not 100% sure if I’m interpreting it correctly.
In the Audio Settings for Devices, when you open-up the “Device setup” there is an “MQA capabilities” setting. I believe it is asking for you to indicate the MQA capability of your Device/DAC. IOWs, if you have a non-MQA DAC, you would select “No MQA support” and if you have a fully MQA-enabled DAC, you would choose “Decoder and renderer” That is how I’ve always interpreted it.
The other way it could be interpreted is what you want your Roon Core to do (in that case, your selections would be totally opposite). Don’t know why I always have trouble with this, but each time I look at it, I always question if my interpretation is correct – that it is asking about the capabilities of your DAC - is this correct?
It is a mix of both. It’s primary purpose is an indication of DAC capability. But ‘Renderer Only’ is a default setting in many cases because it works regardless of your DAC being MQA or not. And most MQA DACs can be decoder and renderer or renderer only. You choose where you want the fist unfold to happen. In Roon or on the DAC.