on my Brooklyn both files played at 24/352
PassThrough showed a blue light, meaning all decoding carried out by the DAC.
SoftDecode showed a red light, meaning DAC is carrying out 2nd/3rd unfold and render only.
Happy to test anything else you are after.
I think the idea of the test was to see if the second sample, already first stage decoded, could have some dsp applied to it and still be recognized as mqa and second/third stage unfolded by the dac. If you could apply some dsp to the second sample in Roon, eg some basic PEQ, does your dac still unfold it to 352??
with simple PEQ the DAC now only shows 32/88 and no sign of any MQA decoding.
Ok thanks for trying that. Disappointing result.
This suggests that MQA in band signaling in the decoded 88.2/96 kHz audio does not survive intermediate DSP. In order for any subsequent unfolding/optimization to occur, it may have to take place within a single component. Or a separate signaling channel, such as available via USB, may have to convey to downstream components that the audio is MQA.
AJ
Thanks very interesting read
It can’t. The MQA diagram mentions some sort of ‘side loaded’ DSP, which short of any further supporting info from MQA, we have to assume will need to be specifically written around MQA possibly via their API.
They’ve been pretty clear that just altering the bit-perfect data ad-hoc will make it non-MQA. DSP code will probably have to check-in with their internal integrity/security code.
The fact that al the data for this isn’t published makes me think they want to keep it under wraps outside of commercial interests, or they haven’t got all the pieces to the puzzle sorted out yet.
See here also https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mqa-and-room-correction/22634
Thanks for posting the Andreas Koch interview. He’s one of the best guys in the industry. The MPS-5 player can still hold its own against anything out there, regardless of price.
He is one of pioneer of DSD technology back in late 90’s that resulted in Super Audio CD. His products are a benchmark for others to follow. Highly respected audiophile.
Hey all - I deleted some posts in this thread yesterday while we discussed internally. We’ve talked and they’ve now been restored. As you were 
Any news on MQA in Roon? Thx.
Looks like the Tidal Desktop app is organizing MQA a little better than before. Nice to see a [M] for Master
I think that was a good clarification.
Great news. This I would think makes it possible for Roon to do the same as now there exists some kind of flag in their metadata for MQA albums.
If Roon could set up a Focus for Tidal MQA would be awesome too.
This makes it so much better! Liking that “M”
Agreed. You can tag them in My Tags in the meantime. The green tag on the Bread album shows my “Tidal MQA” tag.
Exactly what I do now. But it can be done much better with Focus.
And if you do this same with plain standard FLAC, you get smaller file/less bandwidth consumption than the MQA encoded file… And it decodes with plain standard FLAC decoder without anything extra. So why bother with the MQA encoding/decoding hoopla in the first place?
Must be Groundhog Day.
Agreed, a 18 bit FLAC sample at 96kHz is slightly smaller than an equivalent MQA. Moreover it is truly lossless and it can playback on existing FLAC decoder.
