MQA Decoding Available in Roon? [Soon, see CES 2018 announcement]

[IGNATZ (BEP)]

Can you confirm please that Roon currently does NOT do the first unfolding (decoding) of MQA files?

If so, can you provide any information regarding when this functionality will be introduced?

I have a DAC that does MQA rendering, but not the initial decoding.

Thank you.

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Roon does not decode MQA currently and it is on the list of features for some future date. Roon do not give times for these things to be delivered as failure to comply for whatever reason leads to disappointment.
This is how I understand things. We are all patiently awaiting this.
Tidal Masters on a Laptop will decodefor you.

[IGNATZ (BEP)]

Thank you for confirming my understanding.

[Luke_Thomas]

So basically mqa is worthless in roon

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Not at all. If you have an MQA DAC, Roon will deliver it and the DAC decode it. If you don’t, The MQA titles sound great on my system.

[seagull (Wim)]

CES 2018 announcement on MQA website:

Roon Labs is the latest software partner to announce integrated MQA support for its award-winning music player. Roon’s desktop software will support local MQA file playback, as well as TIDAL MQA streaming for HiFi subscribers.

Timing has not been announced yet.

[andybob (Andrew Cox)]

Brian has confirmed Roon will Support first unfolding of MQA:

A set of very specific questions

Unlike the TIDAL app, Roon has no difference in audio streaming capabilities between iPad and Mac. You’ll be able to access the same content at the same quality through both without buying extra hardware. And yes, Roon can ship the audio over your wireless network to the iPad. We do not degrade the quality during wireless transmission, or anything like that. That means that today (with Roon doing no MQA decoding yet), both will play the MQA content without unfolding, and in the future, when the…

The CES announcement by MQA is an indication that negotiations have finished and a business arrangement is in place. Implementation will follow.

[arisholm (Erik Arisholm)]

Well, I have a Bluesound Node 2 (which supports MQA) and just bought Roon. Very disappointed to see that Roon + Node2 => no MQA… Apologies if this is user error, but I get only 44.1 or 48 kHz out of the Node2 coax out when streaming MQA flac through Roon (with digital processing disabled of course).

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Yes, we await the next update from Bluesound to fix this. I have the same frustration. Hopefully soon.

[fritzg]

Yep. If this had worked a year ago I would have bought a Node 2. Now I have moved on from Bluesound.

[fritzg]

Has this been promised for the next Bluesound update? I had not heard that. Just that it was in process.

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

I have no inside information on this, I am assuming things, always dangerous, I know.

[arisholm (Erik Arisholm)]

I have really given up on Bluesound support… never got a clear answer about anything from that crowd, only strange responses that make little sense technically