Roon decodes MQA even when MQA is turned off

here, I have set tidal in to HIFI, and set the MQA capabilities to NO MQA support…

When streaming most MQA labeled Tidal files, I see the signal path as standard flac, but ex playing Bil Evans Living in the crest of wave, I still see that roon is decoding MQA…

I can not other than asume that this is a bug as this should now be turned completely off

but playing this MQA labled file, the signal path show no MQA decoding, even MQA labled file

In your “device setup”, scroll down to “show advanced” and click. Scroll down to the “enable MQA core decoder” and put the slider to the off position, and see if that changes things,

The second album seems to have a tag error: in Signal Path no “MQA” appears in “Source”. It seems that the second album is not MQA.
NOTE: If you are listening to MQA albums, then it is not recommended to disable the MQA core decoder.

It is possible that not all tracks on an album are the same format.

it is not only this album that show no MQA authentication… Here is

and one that it show (core decoding has been disabled)

Is Tidal being smart, and streaming the 16/44.1 flac when it’s available, and the mqa when it isn’t?

44.1kHz multiple vs 48kHz multiple

Since the OP has chosen HiFi quality instead of Master quality, a conclusion of tag error cannot be drawn. Forcing a 48kHz album to become 44.1kHz all MQA signaling is destroyed.

Only if the OP has chosen Master quality, then a MQA mismatch between the label and the signal path may warrant an investigation into whether this is a tag error. Even then this is very complicated due to regional album quality licensing vs user subscription, plus possibly a few other factors, etc.

You need to disable MQA Core decoding if you want to avoid Roon decoding the MQA for you. MQA Capabilities do not control that.

Your Roon settings (quality, MQA Core decoding, MQA capabilities) do not affect whether the album you chose is MQA or not.

Indeed. The Eliane Elias album I was looking at had both mqa and cd versions available on Tidal; although I got lost trying to work out exactly what the OP was playing…

I was playing the MQA version

But (I think) three different tracks from (at least) two different albums.

I think it’s probably working as expected, but if you could list specific albums and tracks, I’ll have a look and see if I get the same behaviour.

You have to turn this off in Settings - Audio for your device to disable MQA core decoding: