Roon 1.5: MQA questions

[Panagiotis_Koutris]

Now I get it. Thank you Henry.

[Brad_Burnside]

@brian

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.

While my MQA-rendering iFI iDSD BL nano DAC works perfectly, I can confirm that 218, Explorer2, and SE speakers do not.

[Harry_Jones]

Love having MQA built in. No longer have to switch to my BlueSound Node 2 for MQA playback. Thanks guys!!

[Anders_Strengberg (String)]

Hi @brian
I have a Meridian Explorer 2.
So how shall I put the MQA Capabilities?
And the Enable/Disable MQA Core Decoder?

I think that the Enable/Disable MQA Core Decoder, shall be on Disable?
So does Meridian says about MQA/Masters in TIDAL!

Any one that knows how here’s among my Roon Fellow is free, to help me out with this!

Thanks in advance.

L&R
Anders

[john (John Iburg)]

Hello @Anders_Strengberg,

We’ve worked very hard to make sure that the default settings per device work for the large majority of users without any extra configuration needed. I believe the default settings for the Explorer 2 should be “Decoder and Renderer”, which will give you the best performance the device is capable of at the moment. We do not recommend our users toggle “Enable MQA Core Decoder” to off unless they wish to avoid Roon’s MQA features in their entity.

-John

[Anders_Strengberg (String)]

Hi @john
Thanks for your advice
So Enable the MQA in the advance settings

L&R
Anders

[Frode_Michalsen]

Hi,

What are the differences between MQA capabilities?:

• Render and decode
• Decode only
• Render only

And the relation to MQA Core enabled?

Cheers,

Frode

[wklie (Peter Lie)]

The default settings should generally be used.

MQA Core Decoder should always be enabled, unless you know what you are doing.

The MQA Capabilities should generally be set corresponding to the DAC hardware you have.

Copying @andybob summary - this is what happens when no DSP is performed:
No MQA Support - Roon Decodes, no Rendering info preserved
Decoder & Renderer - Roon passes through, Rendering info preserved
Decoder Only - Roon passes through, no Rendering info preserved
Renderer Only - Roon Decodes, Rendering info preserved.

Also read:

Roon 1.5 Feedback Thread

Roon + MQA FAQ is here. Yes. You don’t have to worry about the details unless you are trying to get a really specific outcome that is not in the category of “the way most people would want it to work”. A lot of effort/thought has gone into taking MQA (a very complex product/idea) and removing the need to understand it top to bottom in order to just listen to music. Give it a little bit of time. That data is updated in the background. And make sure that all of your devices (cores + remotes) a…

Roon 1.5: MQA questions

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 Th…

How to enable 'passthrough' without MQA decoding?

Try this–think about it in terms of goals, instead of use cases. In general, Roon’s goal is to make sure that MQA files are decoded whenever possible. If Roon thinks your DAC can decode, then it’s going to skip software decoder whenever practical, but engage it if you have configured DSP in Roon (this is because DSP must happen post-decode–this is just how MQA+DSP work together). If Roon thinks your DAC has rendering capabilities, then it will: Ensure that the software decoder produces rend…

[Vincent_Chan1 (Vincent)]

Does Roon uses considerable CPU processing to do the MQA first unfold?

I do notice spikes in CPU usage, when MQA file is playing, it hovers around 80%, sometimes spiking above 100%. There are some occasionally stutter when playing MQA file, especially at the beginning of the song. But most of the time, it’s OK.

I have a fairly old iMac for the Roon Server (iMac 21” Late 2009 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo). Guess pretty old and underpowered for things like MQA unfolding. It has been serving me well for non-MQA playback.

[Tony_Reimann]

Well there you go. You are using hardware below the minimum recommended by Roon. Just because it worked in the past is no guarantee it will work now or in the future. The current minimum recommended is

Intel Core i3, Ivy Bridge+ (I suspect i5 or i7 would be better for MQA unfolding)
4GB RAM
SSD boot drive
1440 x 900 Resolution

or of course you could just turn off MQA unfolding in Roon altogether and continue as you have pre 1.5.

[Geoff_Mirelowitz]

Where are you seeing these minimum recommendations?

I have an iMac purchased new last year. To my knowledge it has no SSD. It works fine with Roon 1.5.

[philr]

This is from Roon’s recommendations here.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_What_are_the_minimum_requirements%3F

And there is more discussion here.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/suggested-hardware/90/20

However this is not the minimum just their recommendations you may be ok with something less but maybe not. A lot depends on your library size. Smaller libraries will likely be fine on something less, larger libraries will probably not be.

[fritzg]

How does MQA work with the AURALiC Altair?

[wklie (Peter Lie)]

It is not a certified MQA decoder, although it has its own proprietary means of handling MQA files. It’s best to set its MQA Capabilities to No MQA Support.

[wklie (Peter Lie)]

@philr

https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_What_are_the_minimum_requirements%3F

@support I think the iOS requirement in the page needs to be changed to iOS 11.

[Brian_G]

Can I ask a basic MQA question? Do I need an MQA DAC (like the Explorer 2) to get the full resolution of an MQA file? If I’m just streaming the file from Tidal on my macbook to my headphones, what resolution is the file streaming at?

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Tidal desktop and Roon do a first unfold. That’s 88 or 96/24. It’s all in the Roon signal path.
The explorer 2 will do a full unfold up to its limit.

[Ratbert]

Best to refer to it as first stage decode and unfold to 88/96 although there are 44k MQA files, second stage as rendering.

[Geoff_Mirelowitz]

I’m not sure that’s completely true Chris.

From @joel on another thread (Explorer 2 DAC Blue Light Gone):

@Geoff_Mirelowitz There is a known issue with the Explorer2 and it needs a (yet to be released) firmware update to correctly render the decoded MQA output from Roon.

You are only seeing 96k, because this is how decoded, but renderable, MQA content is transferred to MQA DACs. Once the new firmware is released by Meridian, the Explorer2 will further unfold/up-sample the MQA content to the DAC’s capabilities.