Imagine I don’t use DSP and tell you the hardware does MQA, you will not do MQA unfolding but leave it to the hardware. Correct?
Yup
And then if I switch on DSP, do you automatically take over MQA processing?
Indeed
Or is this all controlled by the core MQA setting?
That setting is basically just a big “off” switch for people who don’t like MQA. That’s why it’s buried in advanced. When it’s “on” Roon is making the best choices automatically based on:
- The details of the media file
- The hardware’s MQA support capabilities
- The DSP configuration
The settings roughly do this:
- If we think the device can unfold, we’ll let it perform the whole MQA process on the original source file unless there’s a reason not to (DSP)
- If we think the device can render, we’ll take steps to preserve/restore rendering information, and automatically disable upsampling in Roon (which would prevent rendering in the DAC)
- If we think the device has no MQA support, we’ll unfold the file, assuming that the device supports the unfolded format (24/96 or 24/88 depending on the file).
That said, you don’t have to tell the truth in the settings window…so all of the flexibility is there to get things done however you like. It is just there without making everyone think about a bunch of tweaky low-level choices.