Sort of. For the final unfold, MQA just needs a way to convey to the DAC which of a few dozen upsampling digital filters to use. In most demonstrated cases, that is one specific filter. As long as that filter already is present and active on the DAC – as it apparently is even by default on some chipsets – that is the extent of the “intimate knowledge” MQA requires on the final unfold.
AJ
Exactly. So “full unfold” could effectively be implemented by having those filters in Roon (with the appropriate transfer functions) and that’s that. The reality is there’s a lot more to a DAC than the upsampling algo: analog stages, etc affect the sound, and MQA is not analyzing these effects. It is literally a trick to force licensing on the hardware side, and I find it disgusting frankly.
I would not go so far as to attribute malice. MQA signal path dictates seem less licensing plot motivated by greed, more end to end engineering play driven by specious technical rationale.
AJ
I think you’re being generous… But whatever, I shouldn’t come that strong, I get that.
Is this purely a business model? Or is it also an engineering solution that happens to work and gives assurance to various parties?
It depends who you believe (and I mean this objectively):
And to add to my own post up there, keeping things objective: we may not know the FULL technical picture in either the above
In which case, trust your ears and your wallet!
If it is down to believing one side or another then MQA are home and dry. It does demonstrate the bubble we can lock ourselves away in because we are such a small community and while we offer MQA some legitimacy, we are not going to be the arbiters of their success. Phone and mobile device users will be. A dozen or so Hifi nerds and a blogger will be trodden underfoot and forgotten in no time at all!
Absolutely.
Remember when MP3-320 and iTunes-256 took over? There was a lot of shouting amongst the audiophile community as that was taking over about how lossy it was but the whinging did nothing.
We are the 1% and we don’t matter. But it’s still fun to read about and discuss.
We’re all passionate about our favorite music sounding great!
As state, It is the mobile aspect of MQA which will determine its success. As already suggested, we and what we buy is a very small portion of the music buying and streaming community. MQA is looking to serve the majority, because a few cents per device earned for sporting a MQA logo on a device sold in its millions, even if you don’t use it, is worth way more than a community like us who only number a few tens of thousands world wide! I have noticed one or two posters citing the self imposed limitation of 48k on mobile devices. That was mainly for the purpose of battery life and is no longer relevant. When a new generation of MQA enabled phones emerge, it’ll be game over because that is the avenue through which most music is consumed.
Just like it was with MP3-320 and iTunes-256, with the iPod and other portable devices initially. So it’s nothing new in that sense. Not in the technical sound quality sense - but in terms of backlash from the audiophile community not mattering.
Because my MQA-enabled DAC is a Bluesound Vault, I currently cannot play full MQA via Tidal, because Tidal doesn’t currently enable output to a network-attached device. As of now, I have to use the Bluesound app to play MQA files.
I love Bluesound as a company, and I love what they do, but, their desktop app for Windows is, um, not ideal, let’s say. As a lifetime Roon member, I would be willing to pay an additional fee, within reason, of course, to simply be able to consolidate all of my listening experiences into a single app. How much “within reason” would be is not for me to say, as of yet, at least without being presented a concrete proposal from Roon regarding any additional fees.
This, I believe is a bug that is being sorted out. It the same for me and my Pulse 2 and Mini.
Cynic in me says that if Roon could do the first unfold and then add the up sampling, DSP, room correction etc it would be better than MQA and their current partners (Tidal and DAC manufacturers) can offer.
Chris, I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing…What issue are you having with your Pulse 2 and Mini?
As I understand it, MQA files in Roon are not recognised by Bluesound devices and decoded. They are decoded from the Tidal/BluOS app.
Roon have done their side of the work and it’s now up to Bluesound to finish the job. This should happen in an upgrade but I have no timeframe.
This is the issue as I understand it. If I’m wrong I’m sure someone will clarify things further.
I don’t think this is right. My understanding is the MQA PCM stream (either a file or streamed) contains all the data/signature for the Bluesound to recognize it and decode it. It should work right out of Roon. But you need to make sure NO DSP is applied.
Bluesound does not decode MQA from Roon. It’s a glitch. Chris is correct about the problem being on the Bluesound end. Danny explains it here: MQA and Bluesound
@miguelito – you are right in that the stream should be detectable as “MQA” and then decoded, but not everyone implements the stream sniffer in real-time on every frame going through the system. many devices only do it at the start of a stream, or when they are told to do so, because their architecture is so “file” based.
RAAT is not file based, and it was only until recently we provided information that made it clear when a mqa stream was beginning, so if you were very file oriented, you would need this new information. A bunch of vendors jumped (notably Lumin: they were really fast) on this new RAAT SDK with the new information. Others, have been slower in releasing updates
I ask @danny regarding on a MQA plug-ins for Roon and I got no reply. Is this method feasible for adoption? As I said I’m willing to pay but not sure the rest will follow. My intention is to get MQA decoding into Roon for those who willing to pay for. This is always much better than buying a new MQA DAC. Thanks