Quick question: 1st MQA unfold is now possible in Roon 1.5, is this available over the Squeezebox mode/protocol used by the UPnP Bridge?
i.e. if the source is a MQA encoded file, Roon core will unfold it and it will be consumed by the UPnP Bridge as an Roon Endpoint, and the files being transported, passed to the UPnP based render in unfolded state (obviously 1st unfold only in the Roon core)
2nd Quick Question: Is there any additional processing in the Sonore OS possible, is this DAC related?
Given that the UPnP Bridge is just a protocol bridge, the presence of MQA unfolding in the Roon Core should be transparent.
Can’t wait to get home and try it - have been away with work for the last while, so looking forward to a good listen.
And confirmation on the Naim app/NDS streaming info that WAV files of 96kHz at 4608kb/s which before Roon 1.5 was just the 48kHz version without any unfolding.
If you were able to stream PCM to the UPnP Render, then it is just the same stream from the Roon Core, which is undertaking the MQA decoding (1st unfold).
Can’t speak for certain UPnP devices, have to leave that to Sonore to test.
However for my NDS with the Sonore UPnP Bridge running Sonicorbiter 2.6 with UPnP Bridge 1.0.14 I am good - further listening is now required, as for some of the MQA versions, I have the HiRes PCM versions, so can compare.
Also compare the 24/192 PCM versions vs the 1st fold of MQA 24/192 to 24/96 (does the full HiRes version offer better SQ than the 1st unfold version topping out at 24/96?)
The ability to add a MQA capable was the Number 2 reason for adding the Sonore Bridge into my system, with the first in being able to use Roon over the Naim App for playback.
So expenditure in establishing a Roon playback route justified.
So a question: What additional MQA processing was going to be in Sonicorbiter 2.6?
Is this with a USB connected DAC?
I read somewhere that Sonore was going to make its MQA release once Roon had, so we have Roon 1.5 now?
So, is the Roon Endpoint is the Sonore device not able to undertake further unfolding of MQA stream beyond the 1st unfold undertaken in Roon Core?
The Sonore device is interfacing between the Roon Core and the DAC, could not it present/emulate the DAC profiles required for the further MQA decoding beyond the 24/96 capabilities for 24/192 encoded material?
It would be great if the combination of Roon 1.5 and Sonore products could provide a full MQA decide path, with only the custom DAC filters coming from the individual DAC profile of a compliant MQA DAC, a complete MQA system say with a Meridian system.
That would be sweet, and as I understood Sonore’s Press Release from earlier in the year, this is what was going to be delivered.
If not, was what was the functionality?
Does Roon 1.5 nullify that?
and is there nothing more that Sonore can add to the MQA Playback path?
What you are asking for is not permitted by MQA because we are digital pass through device and not a DAC. Our press release was clear that the Rendu series would only offer first unfolding. Anyway, the project is not moving forward so the best solution is to have Roon do the first unfolding.
So it can’t represent a DAC profile to enable the next level of unfolding in the MQA playback path?
What I am looking for is the unfold to 24/192 for MQA 192k files, as presently the 1st unfold in Roon is to 24/96 leaving some additional information undecoded.
This would then be presented to the downstream UPnP player as 24/192 uncompressed WAV files.
This would still be ahead of any application of the noise shaping with custom filters that a MQA certified DAC would allow.
The UPnP Bridge is working great, and acting as an Roon Endpoint for my Naim NDS network player, without any further conversion to another format, be it Async USB, S/PDIF or I2S and any potential problems introduced. Coupled with a great release in Roon 1.5, it makes for a compelling enhancement to playback route over Naim’s native App and a transcoding UPnP server.
Whatever information that is ‘unencoded’ will remain that way. But the second unfold is DAC specific so the question you might ask is why does a Naim DAC need a third party application to choose it’s filters? And the answer is they really don’t. They are pretty good at the DAC business. I set my Roon DAC setup to no MQA capability but tell DSP to upsample to 192. I get all files go through the first unfold and then be sampled to 192. That will also apply to files only meant to go to any intermediate sample frequencies because Roon can’t automate that process but it works well enough for me. I don’t know if that is applicable via the UPnP bridge but it is worth a listen.
