Are you sure about the color if you don’t mind me asking? If the DF sees the MQA stream it should indicate purple.
I can’t get my DF to work with MQA on my new 11" iPad Pro. The stream gets very unstable with cracks, pops and glitches. Also the DF lights struggles and flashes between purple and magenta. I’m also using an USB-C to USB dongle to connect the DF to the iPad.
When I connect the DF to my iPhone with the Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter MQA plays without hickups
I am experiencing the identical phenomenon with my 2018 iPad Pro 12.9” and a new Dragonfly Red on iOS 12.1.1. I have tried both of Apple’s official adapters (USB-C Digital AV Adapter and USB-C to USB Adapter) as well as several adapters from Anker and iFi. However, they all yield the identical crackling MQA sound and rapidly cycling indicator color between magenta and purple. It seems as if the Dragonfly is trying to lock onto an MQA signal but cannot as the signal is badly distorted and/or rapidly cycles on and off.
This identical behavior has also been reported recently in a couple of forums on Head-Fi, and needs to be reported to Roon support if it hasn’t already. A KEY OBSERVATION that I and others have made is that the 2018 iPad Pro endpoint shows up as HEADPHONES in the Roon Signal Path, whereas the iPhone is listed as a USB OUTPUT or USB DEVICE in the Roon Signal Path. I don’t know if the issue lies with a faulty implementation of USB-C Audio and/or USB Host Mode on Apple’s end, or if the fault lies on Roon’s end. All I know is that this issue needs to be addressed as soon as possible by Roon. For myself, I reluctantly purchased an additional 2017 iPad Pro 10.5” with lightning connector to replace the 2018 iPad Pro as my iOS Roon endpoint.
@Edward_Gerber you seem to have posted this issue in several areas of the roon community. One place is enough.
I apolgize for the duplication.
Accepted…its also in a non related topic…I started the thread…but I digress. Probably a mod will drop all of this into a new thread. So don’t worry too much. Enjoy the music. While I don’t have a DF capable of MQA I do have 2 11” Ipad pro’s in the house so I know the issues.
Roger,
Both the Dragonfly Red and Black now support full MQA playback. Firmware version 1.06 updated these DACs to include an MQA Renderer. When an MQA Core file is played (24/88.2 or 24/96) and MQA signal detected, the light on the Dragonfly will change to PURPLE (distinct from Magenta) and fully unfold the audio file to the MQA Studio Master.
DragonFly Black/Red Firmware v1.06
▸ added MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) rendering support to the DragonFly DAC
The Dragonflys support rendering - this requires that the upstream source does a first unfold of the MQA data. To this date no app does that - TIDAL on Android just started doing this, but not the iOS version at this time.
The only way to play MQA on an iOS device today is to play an MQA file (as opposed to streaming TIDAL) and use a full MQA decoder (one that does both unfolding and rendering) as DAC.
You can stream MQA through Roon to an IPAD and use a meridian explore 2 with the camera kit to power it.
Ah, very good point. And since Roon can do the first unfold, then in such a configuration, the Dragonfly would also work. Sorry… my bad, didn’t think about that setup.
That is exactly why I stated that the Dragonfly now includes an MQA “renderer”, not a full hardware decoder. My statement about an MQA Core file being played was based upon Roon having performed the initial authentication and decoding of the MQA Distribution file (24/44.1 or 24/48) to the MQA Core file (24/88,2 or 24/96), which would then be fed to the Dragonfly to perform the remaining unfolding to the MQA Master file.