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

It’s just an implementation of Tunein, but reasonably done (and Roon don’t have a proper radio feature). I’m hoping the Radio Paradise link might be able to get the FLAC stream, but I don’t know if it’s possible.

My reading is there are two ways to detect a particular setting:
1- Assume that setting is specified in the header, like a FLAC file’s metadata
2- Pay attention to every PCM packet being sent and switch on the MQA decoding if a PCM packet indicates it’s MQA-encoded

What @danny is saying is that certain systems are designed around ‘1’ and do not “sniff every packet” (aka ‘2’) post initialization. What he’s also saying is that the RAAT SDK didn’t use to provide an MQA flag at initialization and now does, but that BlueSound needs to incorporate the latest release of the RAAT SDK to get this working.

Long story short: BlueSound does ‘1’ not ‘2’ hence they need to know at the start that the file is an MQA file, and to do this all they need to do is update the version of RAAT they are using.

Makes sense?

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Actually Lumin incorporated both MQA decoding and the proper RAAT SDK for supporting MQA over RAAT at the same time. That’s possible because Lumin got MQA certified after the required RAAT SDK was released.

I think PS Audio was in the same state as Bluesound regarding the limitation of MQA over RAAT, but the latest news is that they’ll have a fix imminently.

Miguelito, this is a great explanation. This right here is just about as much sense as this whole thing is ever going to make to me, so I’m just gonna leave it be, more than happy to know this much! Thanks!

Indeed MQA have to taking care of users who owned MQA render like AQ Dragonfly already paid fee for MQA, they needed the first unfold at software, the first unfolded licencing should be much lower as hardware manufacturers already paid a part of the fee, without the software part then all renders become useless, fee paid for nothing, that’s why the industry against MQA not based on sound but the unfair natures business model.

MQA enabled software/streaming service/hardware, no matter you use it or not, you have to paid it first, for the case of decoding TIDAL MQA with MQA render, the royalties paid to MQA from TIDAL, Recording Company, ROON, and the Render manufacturers plus the USERS also paid the service fee and hardware cost, no one less in the chain otherwise no MQA working at all, the breaking link is ROON currently, but user still paid a large sum of the MQA related hidden fee, it’s no difference from RANSOM!!! it’s a BLOODY diabolic deal!!!

Will we see ROON OS based DAP someday with DSP bulit-in with no limited to Audeze only preset but more headphone and earphone too

I am not paying any extra to Tidal for MQA titles. I am not paying any extra to my hardware supplier.

2 posts were split to a new topic: Posts removed…?

I’ve been one of the folks who figured having the first unfold in Roon was a good idea. I think it has a lot to do with my setup…

I have a library of files that were MP3, old iTunes library and the odd CD. I don’t really listen to the old library and have moved over to almost exclusively streaming. I had Spotify from when I was using Sonos a lot (now repurposed for roon), I use Apple Music (CarPlay integration) and bought Tidal with HiFi. I should state that the only reason I bought Tidal was because of roon - so I hope they get commission :slight_smile:

I’ve enjoyed the Tidal Masters - first I listened to them via a Dragonfly. The first DAC I have bought. Not with Roon but with the Tidal app and Audirvana. So when this thread came along I was all for first unfold in roon - it would allow roon to do what I was doing in Tidal and Audirvana. And when I play an MQA track in Tidal and a non-MQA track in Tidal, the MQA track sounds way better. So it is conclusive… MQA is great.

Since then I’ve bought a fair few DACs (and Pi’s) for around the house - they’re all capable of 32/196+ audio in theory. So now I’m sitting with kit that doesn’t decode MQA, but could handle the output of the first fold. Again - seems that MQA would be great for my environment.

My latest DAC has been the ProJect S2 - which is a full MQA renderer. I turned off all DSP in roon for it, and have been listening to that almost exclusively (through necessity) lately. And hey - MQA vs non-MQA, MQA is a winner (for me).

So I’ve been very keen to have MQA in roon.

Last night I went to HDTracks to take a look at it. They have a free sampler you can download (http://www.hdtracks.co.uk/free-highres-sample/) which I did. I also went over to 7Digital and bought a 24/44.1 album off there. Added them to my roon library and noticed a few things…

  1. The experience in roon is fantastic. Seriously, if you’re using it purely for streaming, you get a different experience of it. Why didn’t I notice this with my library? These are old files that I ripped from CDs I have, old iTunes files etc… they haven’t come from a well curated source or when metadata was really a big consideration beyond can I see the track title, album and artist on my brick of an MP3 player at the time?
  2. It sounded pretty good. But didn’t have the space, volume or stage of the MQA file.

So I was still keen on the MQA file. But I had learnt something - and something I would urge anyone trialling roon to do… go get a hi-res (or not) sample from a decent website and see the roon experience in all its glory.

But then I remembered - thanks to MQA I had had to turn off all the magic in roon. roon was basically a transport to get my music file to my headphone amp. So into DSP we go… if I am not using the MQA files for now, I can turn on the DSP. Big one is the sample rate conversion - I opted for Max PCM rate (Power of 2). Enable that. Back into my S2 device settings and on playback I set the max PCM rate to “Up to 384”. Why not more? My i3 NUC didn’t like it.

The verdict? Well I have to say that no scientific tests were conducted… but apparently that is ok in these matters. But my sentiment now is if roon is going to spend money to get the first unfold into roon, please save the money guys and put it to better use elsewhere (ok - that is my opinion. Spend it where you need to). But for me having undergone this exercise, I have zero interest in MQA. I had forgotten that using MQA had meant I had turned off all the roon goodness. Turn it back on.

My route forward? I’ll use Tidal with DSP, and if I find something I really can’t live without, I’ll go to one of the sites (HDTracks, 7Digital or Qobuz) and buy it in Hi-Res and use that with DSP. I’ll leave the origami to others.

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Someone from Roon might clarify this, but at least from a technical perspective it should be possible to let Roon do the first unfold, and then apply DSP on that. But then we have the licensing agreement, and MQAs somewhat strange view of DSP, so probably not.

However, if you could do the first unfold in Roon (which is the important unfold for MQA), and then apply room correction on that stream and send to DAC as 96 khz PCM, then I would probably use MQA that way, even pay a few extra dollars for it.

Yeah that was my first inclination and it would still be a good option to have in Roon.

But on the other thread Danny was saying that the option of it being a paid add-on was off the table. So that means either they get first unfold for free (great) or they have to foot the bill for all of us.

If it is the former - I’ll take the first unfold thanks. If it is the latter, I’d rather stick to DSP and let Roon put the money to other uses.

Depends the magnitude of the $ involved really.

Sounds very much like MQA is Managing your Digital Rights (MDR) :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

This was clarified. It has not been a technical issue at all for a long time. The sticking point is MQA Co. wants Roon to pay a license for every Roon user, not just those that use MQA. This is an issue given the expansion the Roon business is looking to do to areas where those users don’t give a damn about MQA.

MQA’s relentless intention to milk every venue will be their demise in my opinion.

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Not over my dead body. F*ck MQA and their medieval-evil proprietary marketing strategy. Whatever the so-called quality of their compressed containment containers, I’m not even remotely interested and can easily live without their BS, sufficient HD alternatives already. Silly marketing dinosaurs. Never really bothered to join the pro/con MQA slaughter debate, but when it gets to the point that Roon charges every user, I (as a lifetimer) feel addressed too. In a few years, hopefully (and probably) MQA will be dead and we won’t even remember what all the fuss was about.

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I expect Roon to fully provide everyone with a choice and if they decide to sell their souls to some marketing machine (MQA today, what else tomorrow and afterwards?), I expect them to be fully transparent and make this an option for each and every user. I would feel used and abused if excessive development capacity and budget would go to MQA development, just to be able to advertise they’re on the bandwagon as well. instead, they could dedicate resources to something worthwhile.

P.S. I’ve kept quiet for a long time, but now that discussions have come as specific as these, I think it matters expressing my opinion as well. Why? Because I’m a music lover in the first place, definitely not someone who has thousands and thousands to spend on expensive gear (however much I would want that to be true😉).

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Danny has said on the other thread that the option for it to be a chargeable extra is off the table. I have faith that they will do right by their subscribers.

Let’s hope so. MQA discussions (both in favour and against) in this community have been quite heated.

Agreed. But the Roon folks have largely stayed out of them. We’ve made them heated all by ourselves :slight_smile:

I’m equally worried about Roon absorbing the cost. I want them to be a sustainable company first and foremost. So I’m not keen on us paying for it. Or them paying for it!

Agreed, @anon73739233, we’re on the same page!:grin:

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The entire holdup is because MQA wants to charge every user. Now keep in mind in the case of TIDAL and Audirvana, they do. So they don’t want to give up the honey that easily. They know that if it is optional - eg an optional charge - only a meager amount of people will sign up.

The reality of it all is it is still a niche, and to be perfectly honest, in my opinion their time is running out. I have no strong opinion one way or the other, other that sometimes I am truly bothered by the BS… But if it brings better sounding music to be it.