Question about MQA Support for Topping E50 connected directly to Roon Rore

Support
1

Hi,
My Configuration as below:

Roon Core installed on QNAP TS-251+ with Intel Celeron J1900 CPU with 8GB RAM
Topping E50 connected via USB directly to Roon Core as Audio Output, thereby via PCM output to Integrated Amp.

Problem:
When I am setting the MQA capabilities via Roon Remote software for E50 as “MQA decoder and renderer”, while enabling “MQA core decoder”, during playback of MQA files on Tidal via any device (iPad, iPhone, PC), the playback will abruptly disconnected and on the Roon Remote software, the bottom bar normally displaying song info, with playback, pause, previous & next track button will flash and display (for ~5seconds) “Select Output Device” and will then go back to the normal display, with the playback stopped.

The same happens when I disable MQA core decoder or even if I select the device MQA capabilities as either “Decoder Only” or “Renderer Only”.

Please see below the link to a video I’ve captured from my PC for this issue.

Only if I select the MQA capabilities as “No MQA Support” and enabling “MQA Core Decoder” then I will able to playback MQA files from Tidal but in this case, I will not be able to have the MQA file fully unfolded. (See link below for successful MQA playback with MQA Core Decoder set as “No MQA Capability”.

If I have the E50 connected to my PC, everything works fine, decoding & rendering can be done all by the E50, or decoding be done by the Core while the rendering be done by the E50. (MQA vs OFS).

I have tried and change all sort of settings available both in the NAS and in Roon but couldnt get the E50 to unfold any MQA, to any degree.

Anyone has come across this scenario? or anyone has any pointer that I can give it a try?

Thanks in advance.

Ben

2

I think the problem is most likely something to do with the USB interface on the NAS not working well with the XMOS interface. Make sure you have the latest drivers installed. Also, be mindful that the Qnap doesn’t meet Roon’s minimum specification for running Core.

1 Like
3

I am kind of thinking the same as it looks very likely to me it’s the inability of the USB port to handle MQA signal transfer.

And yes, am aware the specs of the NAS is not up to Roon Requirement but there’s only minimum amount of traffic and CPU usage in the NAS and so far, everything’s working fine when running Roon, apart from the E50 MQA issue.

Thx again!

1 Like
4

And if I am to upgrade the NAS, any recommendation you may have if I wanna have USB port with XMOS capability?

5

Other options…

  1. Keep the NAS to serve files and move Roon core to a NUC (ROCK), or
  2. Use a Raspberry Pi running Ropieee with the DAC.

However, do your research with this DAC when running on Linux.

1 Like
6

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