Yes*. This is the default behaviour if your endpoint is a Renderer or Decoder and Renderer (which it is): to prevent up-sampling and preserve the signalling information necessary for subsequent rendering.
Yes!
* Different rules are applied for MQA content and non-MQA content.
Apart from the technicalities…
My first impression is that Roon sounds even better than before!
How come?
I play with a Meridian Prime, preferably MQA files
Just starting to listen with the new update - 3 cheers to the ROON folks - I know of no other software/product/service that provides the quality, response, and communication that you folks do. Your only fault is that you aren’t the software developers for Devialet…(a bit of humor here).
I have no preconceived opinion of MQA - but, now I can try it and decide for myself.
I have the Oppo UDP 205 which I have been using to listen to MQA encoded albums from USB drives. Frankly I struggle to hear the difference from ordinary full fat HD files. Until today I thought Roon delivering Tidal MQA to the player sounded great. Still think it sounds great after updating to 1.5 with more presence to the music. That of course may just be confirmation bias kicking in.
Just heard a 352 kHz file unfolded in Roon and fully rendered by my Berkeley Alpha DAC 2-MQA. Best thing I’ve ever heard.
Tip: if you are using a Berkeley Alpha USB converter before an MQA rendering DAC then you have to go into the device settings in Roon for the Alpha USB and change it from “no MQA” capabilities to “renderer only”.
Mods are clearing up the MQA battlegrounds to make room for new, fresh forlorn hopes and ditches to die in. I’ve set this topic to close 48 hours after the last reply. Post if you’d prefer that it be kept open.
Rather than searching through the long threads, let me post what I have now playing MQA files. This is to play through Luxman DA-06 (non-MQA) DAC. Is everything alright? I didn’t have to change any setting. They sound great. Thanks!
Yes. The Luxman not being a renderer is simply getting upsampled data.
I would like the Roon team to consider an upsampling filter selection specific to MQA content when playing an MQA file - ie something akin to the MQA filter transfer functions.
My 818v3 does not render if Roon has done unfolding (I use DSP). At least that’s what I assume, because the display on the DSP8000SE shows MHR 96.
When I turn off DSP so Roon passes the stream unchanged, the 818v3 does both unfolding and rendering, and the DSP8000SE show MQA 352 or whatever it is.
@Brian said this was due to a limitation, Meridian is working on an update.
So my questions are, a) are you sure you are right that you get rendering, and b) if so, do you have an updated 818v3? If your answers are a) YES, b) NO, then I have a problem with the settings.