MQA first unfold in Roon? MQA? [Delivered in 1.5]

It will if the target sample rate is above 44 or 48k. If not, like many of the pop or R&B releases, it will remain at its initial rate. One can only assume the corrections for ADC happen but nothing else.

I have done all this. Playing an MQA track on TIDAL outputs at 2x original rate (88 or 96 depending on whether it is 44 or 48 initially). What the poster I was replying to said was that some files do not upsample at all because the master is at 44 or 48. I don’t know of examples of that.

Correct. Do you have an example track?

24K Magic, Bruno Mars. Something of a guilty pleasure I am afraid. I think Beyonce’s Lemonade is also 44.1K MQA.

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Correct–Lemonade is 24/44.1. Curiously, Tidal (in decode mode) seems to upsample to 88.2. When fully decoded, it’s 44.1.

I cannot test with Audirvana, but I expect it to do the same, i.e. send 96/88.2kHz to a non-MQA DAC after MQA Core decoding for MQA Master 48/44.1kHz source files, regardless of what it chooses to display.

Might be an implementation bug.

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We all have those! I don’t even get embarrassed anymore. I’ve always loved Blondie and Bow Wow Wow. Actually both of those bands had some excellent musicians.

Here are a few more MQA 44.1 albums if you want to play some more

A Rocket to the Moon >> Wild & Free [Deluxe]
Alanis Morissette >> Jagged Little Pill (Remastered)
Alt-J >> This Is All Yours
Bruno Mars >> Unorthodox Jukebox
Christine And The Queens >> Christine And The Queens
Depeche Mode >> Construction Time Again
Father John Misty >> Fear Fun
Goldfrapp >> Silver Eye
INXS >> Kick
Johnny Marr >> The Messenger
Leftfield >> Alternative Light Source
Paul Weller >> Saturns Pattern
Seal >> Best 1991 - 2004
The Black Keys >> El Camino
The Black Keys >> Turn Blue
The Dead Weather >> Dodge and Burn
The Pack A.D. >> Do Not Engage
Yeasayer >> Amen & Goodbye

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That’s a feature :wink:

What? Of course not! (says me while sipping a bloody maria before noon).

I’d expect the mqa lib to deal with this seemlessly, ie returning a 44.1 stream instead of an 88.2 one if that’s the target rate.

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I can confirm that both the TIDAL native app (on mac) and Audirvana are sending an 88KHz PCM stream to the DF Red when playing Beyonce’s “Lemonade”. Audirvana in fact indicates that the MQA file and the renderer should be at 24bit/44.1KHz, but Audio MIDI shows 88KHz going to the DF (and I trust Audio MIDI).

Almost certainly this is a bug/oversight in the mqa lib. They still get licensing fees so unlikely to fix… :stuck_out_tongue:

I think the Tidal MQA decoder is upsampling. This makes sense since the Tidal decoder anticipates a generic DAC.

Adding upsampling after MQA decoding does not invalidate the idea, any more than tone controls or bass management do.

Meridian gear does this: for most MQA content it is decoded to an original bitrate that is higher, but when I play 44 kHz MQA content, the Meridian 818 shows “MQA 44” but the speakers show 88k because that is what they receive after Meridian’s upsampling. Same with non-MQA 44k.

Well, the reality is most DACs will upsample to their operating rate. Isn’t it weird or misleading then to say the MQA file is 24/44? What does that even mean? If the argument is “closest to the original” then LEAVE IT CLOSEST TO THE ORIGINAL.

I don’t think it’s misleading. “The MQA file is 44” means that the original content was recorded at 44k and the MQA file preserves that, and corrects errors introduced by the converters, but does not enhance the file by upsampling or other modifications. After you have had this original content delivered, you are free to do what you want with it, which as you say often includes upsampling, depending on the rate.

If you don’t like such modifications, get an non-upsampling DAC. But that is independent of accurate delivery.

Pretty clear to me.

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Q3. What are key features of an MQA Core output?

MQA Core output from a decoder carries information enabling a downstream MQA Renderer to complete the Origami unfold and to provide a full output.

The Core signal can be passed over interfaces such as Lightning or USB to low-power portable devices such as headphones and retain the possibility of very high-quality sound downstream.

Since the MQA Core signal is at a higher rate (generally 88.2 or 96 kHz) a listener with a suitable DAC can enjoy a better (but not fully optimised) sound.

The output out of TIDAL and Audirvana IS upsampled. That is my point. TIDAL does not upsample anything in fact, so it must be the mqa lib doing it by applying the same 2x rate unfolding to this file.

The repeated use of the term “errors” in this post and others seems forced, as does the use of the term “corrects.” What are deemed errors are consequences or artifacts of the A/D process working properly. If they did not exist, then the A/D process of the time would not have been working as intended.

An apt analogy for this is silver halide grain in photographic film, for the clumping of silver halide crystals is a structural part of film photography. Film grain is not an error, per se, but a consequence or artifact of the photographic process. And film grain cannot be corrected, per se, but can be low pass filtered at the expense of some high frequency detail. One consequence or artifact, thus, may be traded off for another.

That is the real gist of MQA – artifacts and trade offs, not errors and corrections.

AJ

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