I’m not going to comment on the effectiveness or morality of MQA but I would like to know how to turn it off in Roon.
My problem is when I play a playlist in Tidal with various different resolutions I get a clicking sound from my DAC (Accuphase DP-560) as the track changes from one resolution to another. It’s driving me crazy.
Any help would be appreciated.
The solution to your problem requires resampling, not turning off MQA.
Keep MQA Core decoder enabled, set MQA Capabilities to None, then turn on DSP Engine and resample everything to the same rate such as 384kHz.
You can set the ‘ReSync Delay’ to see if the clicking noise goes away. Sometimes the clicking noise is due the switching relays during sample rate change. To switch off MQA core decoder simply disable it.
Thanks Peter. Unfortunately my DAC sounds best with no upsampling in software. I prefer the sound of the native file. The sales blurb describes some sort of fancy internal resampling but I’m not totally sure how it all works.
Thanks MusicFidelity. I’ll try the Resync Delay. I’m sure I have Core Decoder turned off. I’ll check tomorrow though. Yes the clicking sounds like a relay.
If Roon doesn’t add an option to only choose CD Quality from Tidal, Qobuz might be an option for you. Their HI-FI tier will only supply CD Quality content.
Even if you have MQA Core Decoder turned off, you’d still run into both 44.1kHz and 48kHz Tidal Masters, which will still cause clicking if the resync delay does not solve it.
Not sure if this is possible but, how about enabling MQA unfolding in Roon but then have it downsample > 44.1 to 44.1. It’s already molested, downsampling won’t do much harm.
Of course if you have > 44.1 content in your local library this solution would require turning on and off DSPing.
It seems I (and I mean we) have to compromise in some way because of the Tidal/MQA/Roon relationship.
It would be nice if Roon allowed rejection of all MQAversions when streaming Tidal so only CD quality versions are recognised instead.
This could be an extension of the “Focus” concept.
Maybe I should post this in Feature Requests if it isn’t already available.
There is a feature request thread:
Thanks Jeff. I’ve posted on that thread. I’ll probably be censored though!
I can confirm that trying ALL Resync Delay times and trying ALL options relating to MQA decoding don’t make any difference to the clicking of the relay between tracks of different resolutions on the same playlist.
I’ll have to rely on Roon developers giving us an option to deselect MQA tracks so the 44.1 track plays rather than the MQA track. It should be an easy fix I would have thought.
Well I solved that problem!
Frustration made me turn off Roon and stream from the Tidal app via Shareport to my sMS-200. No more resolution changes.
You’re better off doing re-sampling to 44.1kHz as DrTone suggested.
Or you could have a chat with Accuphase and hear what they intend to do about an unwanted behavior while changing sample rates on the USB interface? 
Or if they have suggestions that could remedy this, such as setting resync times or buffers?
Reluctantly I think I’ll give that a go when playing Tidal playlists…
It’s not just the USB interface that does the relay clicking.
If I play a data disc with different resolutions I get the same clicking.
I’ve spoken to the Accuphase dealer about that and he has no idea what I’m talking about. Apparently he only plays vinyl, SACDs and CDs.
If the click really comes from relay mechanically, then no firmware fix is possible. It is very common for DAC to use relay, and clicking is absolutely normal for DAC using relays.
Thanks Peter.
That’s what I thought and the reason to hope Roon could help.
My DAC doesn’t click with changing sample rates and formats. It all just works seamlessly…
I probably need to buy a cheaper DAC.
