No sound with DSP turned on and MQA

[vlad_k]

Roon Core Machine

Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Intel NUC 6i5SYH. 8GB RAM, Intel Core i5-6260U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Roon 1.8 (884)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

All on ethernet LAN. ZTE GPON bridge of ISP->Mikrotik RB2011iL main router doing NAT/PPPoE/firewall->unmanaged TPLINK LS105G 5 port gigabit switch (for NUC and Dell laptop).
RB2011 also connects KEF LS50W, smart TV and wifi AP via ethernet.

Connected Audio Devices

NUC->Topping D70s DAC USB input from NUC->Topping A90.

Number of Tracks in Library

51 albums, I dont know how many tracks. Plus TIDAL HIFI subscription.

Description of Issue

When I play some MQA tracks from Tidal while DSP is active (headroom management and/or Parametric EQ) the sound occasionaly stops during play or is not present from start of the song. I noticed it happens when new track starts to play or I pause/play the song. The new track could even be the same track which currently plays and set to repeat. When it starts over, there is no sound.

It happens even when I browse different albums and play random songs.
Same trouble is when I sometimes try turning off an on the Parametriq EQ or vice versa. Or sound appears after some time when the songs is already playing.

MQA 44,1kHz is OK:

MQA 96kHz → no sound, or sound only in left channel, or right channel, start/stop doesn’t help:

It looks like a problem with MQA core decoder when enabled. When I disable it and DSP in enabled everything is OK. But i guess I am not listening to MQA anymore. DAC is signalling PCM:

When I disable DSP and MQA core decoder is disabled too, no problems with sound, but I have no equalizer:

DAC shows MQA 96kHz:

[jamie]

Hi @vlad_k,

Thank you for getting in touch to report what you’re seeing. There have been a few threads on the ideal Topping settings to apply in order to use DSP with MQA.

You’ll want to set Enable MQA core decoder to yes
Set Topping Device Setup MQA capabilities to Renderer only

Your Topping will display OFS:
OFS means MQA or MQA Studio with Roon Core decoding MQA Core decoding and the DAC doing MQA rendering.

You can find more details on Topping MQA playback in this great thread:

Roon MQA settings for Topping D90SE

I’m using a Topping D90SE with Roon and Tidal and I am having a hard time finding the proper MQA settings. In Roon, if I set “MQA capabilities” to “Decoder and renderer” and set “Enable MQA core decoder” to “No”, it is my understanding that the DAC is then supposed to handle all 3 MQA unfolds (so Roon is just passing everything through as is to the DAC) but according to the DAC’s display 44.1/16 MQA isn’t being unfolded to 88.2 (the MQA indicator is on but the sample rate shows 44.1). Higher sa…