Keep clicking the filter button until it displays the filter you want to use …
Ok so just stopping on the filter selects it? I was expecting a selection of some kind. Thanks. Been driving me crazy. Do you use any filters or just set it to “ Best” and move on?
Best uses Optimal Transient filter, which “enables” the “post-MQA” bug. Your best bet (and the recommendation of the most) is the Fast Rolloff.
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Great! Done. Thanks so much.
Over in hifi forums, I found that the google docs is stating that MQB purple is NOT performing the 2nd unfold. Now it seems that this is incorrect? So if Roon is performing unfold #1 and the S2 is set to render, the MQB is correctly performing the 2nd unfold and that a purple MQB is a proper setting contrary to the google docs statement.
Is this correct?
I dont have that DAC anymore, but there is 2 different symbols, one for second unfold (up-sampling) only, and one for both unfold.
When I used it, I let Roon do the first unfold, then I up-sampled to DSD256, so even though the DAC has support for MQA I didn’t actually use it.
The colour symbols are to do with whether the MQA file is a ‘studio master’ or not. Nothing to do with unfolds.
FTBoomer said: ↑
@Left Channel My kids got me an S2D for Christmas and I love this little DAC. My question is about MQB. I’ve searched everywhere and your Google Docs reference document keeps popping up everywhere. It states that a purple dot with MQB is a software first unfold but NO 2nd unfold. I then found one post buried that states that this is NOT true. It states that the Purple MQB is in fact the S2D doing the 2nd unfold correctly. This leads me to believe that this would be the preferred method when using Roon for the 1st unfold and allowing the S2D to do the 2nd unfold thus giving us a completely restored file.
Am I correct in these assumptions?
Hi, thanks for pointing that out. MQB is indeed “rendering” mode, when the signal first goes through 1x software unfolding, and is then further unfolded by the DAC to its final resolution.
When a DAC is capable of both MQB rendering and full MQA, one is not necessarily preferred over the other. Your final settings depend upon your ears and your equipment at your location.
Thanks again for noticing that issue in the doc, which is maintained by @Mark Dirac so we’ll alert him via this tag, and I’m sorry I did not notice that at first, though I’m not sure I knew what it was when we were first collaborating on compiling all that information.
Incorrect.
OK - but that was my understanding from https://www.bluesound.com/news/2016/mqa-now-available-on-bluesound/
…and here:
I’m really only talking about the green and blue colour indicators for MQA.
Unfold state is indicated by MQA or MQB.
This is the document that is referred to in my previous post from the author. The section on the MQB purple light is incorrect in this document. Everyone references it but it’s wrong. With Roon doing the 1st unfold then having the S2D in render mode MQB purple is the preferred indicator giving you a fully unfolded studio quality file.
I know MQA claims things like that, but MQA is not as good as PCM 24/192 which is usually what is used in masters.
Oh I agree. Please don’t count me as an MQA advocate. I just use the S2 to do the full unfold when those files play. I don’t search them out just for the sake of MQA. I just figure that since they are there in my library, when they do play I want them to be at the best and intended quality.
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Is there a way to up-sample an MQA file if Roon is doing the 1st unfold and the S2D is doing the 2nd unfold?
I have the up-scaling set to DSD128 but MQA files are unaffected. Am I missing a step?
The second unfold is an up-sampling, but its done in the DAC. So either do the second unfold, or do up-sampling in Roon (I preferred to let Roon do first unfold, and up-sample to DSD when I had the DAC).
If you up-sample in Roon without letting Roon do the first unfold, then MQA is treated as PCM
I have Roon doing the 1st. In your scenario, it would seem that your are skipping the 2nd unfold and up-scaling a file that has not been fully unfolded. This, to me seem like a less than optimal output since you aren’t really up-scaling the full file.
But the second MQA unfold is an up-sampling in the DAC, nothing more. So its more a choice if you want your MQA software in your DAC to do the up-sampling or let Roon do it.
Opinions about MQA are many, but my opinion is that the second unfold (up-sampling in DAC) is not very good and can be done better by for example Roon.
That’s not actually true. The 2nd unfold is actually expanding more of the “compressed” file. Here is the best explanation I’ve seen on the file fold and unfolding and this explains why you are missing out on a fully unfolded file before you do your upscale.
All unfolding of captured data happens in the first unfold aka Decode. If not, then you could not do what Roon does which is apply DSP to the MQA stream and send it on. If the data is modified in anyway then the “fold” data is lost. So, DSP application can only happen after all that information has been restored. Which it is after the first unfold.
The Render stage, and please note that the two stages were named differently for a reason, takes the unfolded data and tells the DAC what the target rate to upsample to and which filter that exists in the DAC to use.
Now, you could argue that the 2nd filter stage is needed because the system was designed to be a closed loop, but, there is no new information being added to the stream during the render process.
So, if you feel that there is data to be had in the render; then the ONLY way you should listen to MQA is for the MQA DAC to do the whole process and Roon should only pass the stream unchanged directly to the DAC.