Yes that’s probably the case.
But the question is wether a MQA DSD64 encoding exists. I never heard of such thing. I thought that MQA is based on a PCM based workflow
AFAIK does the string after MQA just designate the format of the master being used to generate the MQA file. I expect you always get a MQA encoded PCM file. Much like the old SPARS code on CDs that told you something about the mastering process, but you always got a CD (16-bit, 44.1kHz) when you bought it.
As it happens, i was playing an old CD Rip of mine and all of a sudden my DAC indicated 88KHz sample rate? It was on a particular track, mid album. Looking at the file details there is no indication that the file has been corrupted or has bad tagging or anything like that.
The file is available here!
Hi Mikael,
this is interesting. It seems we entered a grey zone here. I downloaded your file and added it to my local roon library and in the track list it shows up as FLAC 44.1kHz 16bit. But when played roon reports FLAC 44.1kHz 16bit 2ch, MQA DSD64.
So my DAC (SMSL M500) is able to work as full MQA decoder & renderer or just as MQA renderer. As decoder and renderer the DAC does not fall for it and plays it as normal 16/44 file without problem.
When I add some DSP work (Crossfeed filter) I force the signal path to do the first unfold in roon and use the DAC just as MQA renderer.
Here we see that roon reports the 1st unfold but obviously does not succeed as the MQA renderer reports just 16/44. In both cases the file played without problem but without mqa which is most probably not here.
I think roon is somehow tricked in beliving that this is a MQA file which it isn’t
Agreed, i am playing back the same file right now in JRiver MC 27 and there is no indication of the file being different from the rest of the album (of course, JRiver does not know what to do with MQA-files though)
Not sure that would matter, as long as it sends it bit perfect to the mqa dac, the dac will decode and render it.
I have a few albums ripped with the hdcd plugin from dbpoweramp and they are 24/44.1. I used to play them from iTunes to my adcom 700 dac that had the hdcd chip and it would recognize the files as hdcd. I can assure you iTunes had no idea what an hdcd encode was. Lol
I just checked with kid3. The file in question does not have MQA metadata at all. Also the bitstream itself does not trigger MQA within the DACs. Nevertheless roon thinks it is an mqa file. I wonder why.