MQA Decoder not working in combination with procedural EQ

[Jan_Peter_Hoffmann]

Hello,

I ran into a problem.
As stated in the description, the roon (on core) MQA Decoder stops working when procedural EQ is activated. When I simply turn off the procedural EQ, it works fine.

Input: Tidal MQA
Core: ROCK on NUC7i7
Output: HDMI out of the ROCK named above
Device Settings: “No MQA capabilitys”, MQA Enable Decoder - checked yes, so switch is blue.

DSP(what is enabled): Headroom 3db, SRC (to max SR =96KHz), Procedural EQ (Channel mapping),

In my procedural EQ I channel mapped the front channels to Surround and Surround Rear channels.

[noris]

Hello @Jan_Peter_Hoffmann,

Output: HDMI out of the ROCK named above

What do you have connected to the HDMI out port? Can you let me know the model/manufacturer of the device?

As stated in the description, the roon (on core) MQA Decoder stops working when procedural EQ is activated. When I simply turn off the procedural EQ, it works fine.

Can you please share screenshots of your Signal Path with Procedural EQ On/Off for this zone when playing the same track?

[Jan_Peter_Hoffmann]

The connected Device is a Meridian HD621 HDMI Switcher.

Sure.
These are settings:

Playing MQA with Procedural EQ enabled:

And one more playing non MQA Music:

And playing MQA without procedural EQ:

[noris]

Hi @Jan_Peter_Hoffmann,

Thanks for the screenshots. In this screenshot:

Playing MQA with Procedural EQ enabled:

I am seeing MQA Core Decoder turned on. What makes you say that MQA Core decoding isn’t working properly here with procedural EQ?

[Jan_Peter_Hoffmann]

Well; there is no music coming out. There are strange noises that sound really bad. It looks like that’s no valid stream.

[Jan_Peter_Hoffmann]

And I encountered the same problem when playing 48khz mp3 radio. Hm.

[john (John Iburg)]

Hello @Jan_Peter_Hoffmann,

We replicated your setup using ROCK running on a NUC connected to an HDMI A/V receiver. I was able to successfully playback MQA and 48kHz MP3 content. The Signal Path looked like this

Based on your symptoms, my hunch is that your audio device is struggling to accept a 24/96 8ch stream over HDMI. We do not have the Meridian HD621 in-house to test, so we can’t say with certainty what formats the device will support in practice. Dropouts and playback failures at high bitrates could be related to cabling, I would suggest changing out the HDMI cable to see if that makes a difference.

-John