It’s x = time of release - today. 
Yeah. We know.
RAATs, it’s hard to be patient! 
I just hope after all this “we aren’t interested in doing a me-too,” “these things take time,” and “it’s so much more than just the first unfold in SW” that the end result is truly more than “just the first unfold in SW,” and truly worth the wait.
This was one of the announced features that tipped the scales for me in favor of paying up the $500 for lifetime, so you’ll forgive my close interest.
Thank you for your comment. Actually some people don’t know that. Especially the DSP and volume leveling deactivation requirement.
Fair enough about the DSP bit.
Venturing a positive interpretation of all that has (not) been said by the Roon team… Maybe the issue is there is still discussion about FULL MQA decoding within Roon for those cases where the DAC is known. That would be interesting, especially if post processing DSP is then allowed (eg room corrections).
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These two statements are different from my understanding. The 48/44.1kHz MQA sample rate display refers to the original sample rate.
As for how it is rendered, please refer to @joel statement above.
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No, he’s right. Currently listening to Beach House, Depression Cherry, 24/44.1. MQA light on the Mytek Brooklyn is lit. There are many others.
Yes, let’s hope it’s something that actually goes beyond what Tidal and A+ are doing already. Granted, there are probably technical, legal and business challenges with allowing SW decoded MQA content to flow on the network to a Roon Ready endpoint, and multi-zone distribution.
But from the perspective of someone running a single zone, with a DAC connected to a Roon Ready endpoint, if all we get at the end of all this is SW decoded MQA, then one really has to wonder what took so long?
Here’s hoping we get more. A lot more.
Yes, that would be consistent with what we have been told. I have veered between optimism and pessimism about the possibility of full decoding and after reading Danny’s remarks, swerved back (slightly) towards optimism.
For users allowing room correction is a “no-brainer” but the problem is that MQA can’t permit your tasteful and remedial room correction without also allowing me to boost the bass stupidly high and drench the whole thing in reverb. Which is anathema to their whole “authenticated masters” rationale. I’ve got no problem with them differentiating a post-processed signal with lights and hope they will be content with that.
How many MQA albums are there?
As some here have hinted, this is a potential licensing compromise that might be a win-win-win for MQA, Roon, and us users:
Since Roon knows the DAC’s it is playing through, it can check against a library of MQA DAC licensees. If the DAC is a licensee, Roon performs full decode. If not, then only a partial unfold.
This will allow for a simpler MQA licensing arrangement with Roon but also allow anyone who has purchased an MQA DAC to be able to get the benefits of MQA (including the DAC-specific final unfold) while also being able to add upsampling, room correction, auto volume leveling, etc.
In my current listening on headphones plugged into my Brooklyn DAC, I disable auto volume leveling and DSP so that I can hear the benefits of MQA. While MQA is not critical for me – I still prefer the hi-res files I own and store locally vs any form of streamed music – I do use Tidal to listen to music before buying, and listening to MQA encoded music without MQA decoding is a dull and unenjoyable experience. When I listed through my loudspeakers, I enable auto volume leveling, room correction, and upsampling because they make a much bigger improvement in the music than the MQA decode without them. In this case though, my hi-res music is much more enjoyable than the MQA tracks without decoding.
I look forward to when I don’t have to compromise, but I can wait patiently for this. I have total faith in the Roon team to do what’s best for the Roon platform strategy and for all of us users. I’d rather give then time to do the right thing than pressure them to rush a hobbled implementation.
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While this would be preferrable to no second unfolding it would be a clear admission that secondary unfolding is all about licensing.
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Regarding the number of MQA albums it is region dependent.
I have 2400 MQA albums currently in Sweden and have already removed what I consider duplicates and studio album collections that have all albums available already as individual albums. I was very happy when I managed to break up the Metallica collection into individual albums. I mean it’s 16 discs with no nametags.
Didn’t want to wait and given the fact that my understanding at the time was that rendering the file could only happen in a MQA hardware DAC I went ahead and bought a Meridian Explorer². I then felt the need to buy a good quality signal for the analog music to travel across into the AUX port.
The Explorer² handles all the MQA rates which is not true for my other audio equipment.
USB headset: 44/48 only
HDMI audio 44/48/96 5.1 system
Realtek audio 44/48/96/192
None of these support a 44.1kHz unfold. Do these kind of unfolds exist?
The Explorer is one of the cheapest MQA solutions I’m aware of.
To reach mass market the first unfold is important and it is good and the end result should be 44/48/96 as 88 is a very uncommon rate not supported by most low end systems.
Most rendered tracks are probably that much better than the software unfolded version which means that MQA hardware is not needed to enjoy MQA content but this involves at least software unfolding. Having a MQA hardware solution blends roon with TIDAL masters. I much prefer to use roon compared to the desktop TIDAL application.
With unfolding I reach probably 44/48/96 which can be sent across HDMI to the receiver and the DAC within do the final playback. It would be interesting to compare software unfold to the receiver DAC to a fully rendered 192kHz album going into AUX on the same speakers.
For me the whole ‘Authenticated’ thing is just marketing hype and nonsense. How can MQA be serious about ‘Authenticated’ when it allows a fully MQA unfolded and rendered signal with the blue light on a MQA DAC to be connected to an amp and then to a pair of miniature, cheap, poor quality speakers in an acoustically bad room. How on earth is that “what the artist and producer heard in the studio”? When a nicely corrected speaker response and room using DSP is not!
In reality ‘Authenticated’ means something very different to what MQA is marketing it as.
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Hmm the fact that you say MQA/Tidal is restricting the content for regional dependancy if indeed true makes my blood boil even more so than the situation with TV/Movie content on Netflix - for music it just shouldn’t happen that way.
That said from my understanding the DSP options in Roon will kill any more MQA decoding/unfolding in the chain…someone correct me if I am wrong on that.
I guess they’re technically saying they authenticate up to your dacs output, but I agree the marketing implication is you hear what the artist intended thanks to MQA, whereas the reality for most listeners in an average untreated room would most likely be a sound nothing like the artist intended. But then if 90+% of people are using cheap earbuds no ones listening to what the artist intended anyway (and who knows whether the artist truly intended it to sound that way - maybe the label made them have it all compressed for example?).
Certainly my experience of DRC has been nothing comes close to the beneficial impact it brings - far outweighing (orders of magnitude) the MQA technoody - which to be fair on the Explorer2 I bought and using on ‘average’ lower-end headphones, Im hard pressed to detect any difference.
We’re waiting to see.
My understanding from the MQA literature is that MQA will preserve the sample rate of the original master (or something along those lines). If we are to follow this then a 44 or 48 file that doesn’t upsample is fine. Audirvana actually tells you exactly what the MQA target rate is.