Roon, Hifiberry Digi+ Pro, Tidal Masters MQA

Audio Gear Talk Raspberry Pi
1

Hi I am new to Roon. I have setup a Roon server on a linux node in my network and setup client connections to my NAS and to Tidal HiFi. Everything so far works great. I can log into either my Mac or PC and play music including Tidal Masters in MQA format.

My next goal is to send audio to my living room setup, which includes an Anthem AVM-60 preprocessor. What I wanted to do is to add a board such as a Hifiberry Digi+ Pro to my Raspberry PI and run a digital coaxial connection to my preprocessor. The pi would run Roonbridge.

I’ve read countless posts on this board and I’m still confused as to if this would work. Most of the people in the discussions refer to using an external DAC with a Pi but I don’t believe I understand why this is necessary. Will the following configuration work to listen to Tidal Masters?

Roon Server -> Raspberry Pi with Hifiberry Digi+ Pro -> digital coaxial -> Anthem AVM 60

My preprocessor doesn’t support MQA, so does this mean I won’t be able to send a digital signal (Tidal MQA Stream) to it and I should change the HifiBerry to the analog RCA version?

Thanks for any help.

2

You can stream Tidal MQA files. They’ll play, but they won’t be decoded unless you’re using software that can decode MQA. Roon can’t do this currently, but there’s hope that it’ll be able to do so at some point in the future.

The Digi+ Pro should work. You may also want to take a look at the Allo DigiOne, which I have and really like.

3

Thanks for the response. When you say they won’t be decoded does this mean that they will always playback at 16bit / 44hz?

4

The MQA Masters on Tidal are often 48kHz/24 bit, but yes. If not unfolded (decoded) they will play at that res. In the medium term future Roon will do software unfolding to 96kHz/24 bit but not at the moment.