Meridian Prime Headphone amp connected to NUC via USB
Library Size
500 tracks
Description of Issue
Using Focal Celestee Headphones, I entered their EQ details that I found online into the Parametric EQ within Roon. When I engage the EQ, MQA is no longer available (no Blue or Green light). When I disengage the EQ, MQA playback is restored.
Iâm no expert, but I understand that MQA uses its own EQ settings, so enabling your own EQ prevents MQA from rendering with its EQ, but you are still getting the MQA file, you just lose the indicator because you are using the parametric EQ.
What is in-between Roon and the headphones (ie what DAC are you using)? As per @Kursten_Hogard if you are applying DSP the you are not feeding the DAC an MQA bit-stream so it will not be recognised as such.
Thereâs definitely a bug in the Explorer² firmware which stop it detecting a renderable MQA Core (first decode) signal or displaying that it is detecting and rendering it. The same may, unfortunately, apply to the Prime. @john may have more knowledge than me here.
Parametric EQ in Roon is absolutely compatible with MQA rendering. I use it with my Meridian 818v3/8kSE system to implement room correction filters.
What are the Primeâs endpoint settings in Roon? Decoder and Renderer? Or something else?
On contacting Meridian via my PP on this issue, their response wasâŚ
The Prime will not authenticate an MQA source that has had the parameters altered through an EQ system.
This goes beyond the usual scope of MQA playback and, as the Prime is older than Roon, as Roon update the software and add additional features the Prime is fixed to understand an authenticated MQA file only.
When the sound parameters are changed it does not meet the necessary checks and this is why the LED lights switch off.
Iâve received a further response from Meridian, via my PPâŚ
The Meridian Prime has been fully tested with the MQA developerâs kits and adheres to the correct specification.
It would seem that Roon is not marking the decoded stream as MQA when the parametric EQ feature is turned on. This is likely the cause to why the MQA light is not lit on Prime because the
stream is not (MQ)Authenticated at this point.
It is common that many audio playback softwareâs break the MQA integrity when applying post playback features such as tone controls, EQ and even digital volume attenuation will have an impact. Altering the original source will break the MQA stream.
I believe the customer has already shown that the unchanged MQA signal works as expected and applying an EQ prevents MQA playback. I would suggest this is typical (and expected) behaviour of MQA.
I donât want to point out the multiple errors here.
Anyway, the earliest MQA hardware could only recognize undecoded MQA streams, and could not do rendering only. MQA had soon evolved to be able to handle both undecoded MQA streams, or MQA Core (as decoded by Roon, Tidal desktop app, Audirvana, or Lumin hardware). However, for really old products this required a firmware update, which might or might not exist. Up-to-date MQA products should be able to recognize the EQ-applied MQA stream from Roon and display OFS or OrFS (or even MQB), or provide a suitable LED color to represent that.
If there is no firmware upgrade for your hardware, you cannot use DSP Engine EQ without breaking MQA for your hardware.
Yes, in conjunction with Peter Craven (Algol Applications Ltd).
Not really; itâs more complicated than that. Meridian was owned (primarily) by Richemont; MQA was spun out; Meridian is now just a licensee of MQA technology.
As per @wklieâs post immediately above yours, older MQA products required firmware updates as MQA streaming evolved. Unfortunately, both the Explorer² and the Prime are no longer current products.
Why not? They are taking their time to provide examples of other gear which have no problem rendering MQA-decoded + DSP streams output by Roon. In other words, they are providing evidence which suggests that the problem is a Meridian one, not a Roon one.
Hi folks, Iâve been in contact with our device expert about this to see if he had any insight here.
He let me know that weâve discussed this with Meridian in the past. While this typically works with most devices, there are some Meridian devices (Explorer2 and Meridian Prime) where things arenât working as expected. We raised this with Meridian some time ago, but unfortunately, it sounds like this is not an issue that can be resolved at this time.
When Iâm able, in a weekâs time, I will try the same EQ settings with my Meridian 218 and 210.
Meantime, if there are other Prime owners who are willing to experiment/input the same EQ parameters into Roon (to ascertain/confirm that the issue affects their Prime devices), I would be most grateful.
