Correct. Processing the original MQA file directly would destroy its MQA-ness. The unfold is data decompression–the lower bits of the file contain a bitstream. Once it’s unfolded, it looks like 88.2kHz or 96kHz PCM with a tiny bit of metadata buried in it. It’s that unfolded stream that is suitable for processing.
This is a limitation on Meridian’s side. MQA is aware. Meridian is aware. I’m not aware of the ETA for resolving it, but my understanding is that they plan to.
Someone who tracks Meridian hardware a little bit more closely would know the precise scope of products that have this limitation, but I believe that all of the stuff that uses “MHR” terminology is affected.
For the time being, yes.
There’s no way for us to determine MQA support level from the Meridian network protocol, and a lot of inconsistency in what is/isn’t supported by various configurations, so we didn’t want to assume. I conveyed our willingness to read this support information off of the protocol were they to provide it. Hopefully they will fill that detail in, too. If not, manual setup will be required.
That said–regardless of the setting that you choose, DSP capabilities are preserved. If Roon thinks that the DAC can perform MQA rendering at the end of the chain, it will also do extra steps to preserve the rendering information. If not, then everything still happens more or less the same way, we just don’t do the extra work.