Sometimes things “may” need adjustment for room layout etc… but having tried it all for me less is more works best
MQA Full Decoding and Rendering are designated as Enhanced. If you’re getting Lossless, you’re not decoding MQA fully.
Yeah, I don’t see the MQA Renderer portion of your signal path… set your DAC as “renderer only” and see if that changes… with Decode set to ON in advanced.
That makes total sense, what with MQA not being lossless in the first place - thanks!
So - I have Roon feed my LSX speakers via ethernet. Great for sending 24/96 FLAC files (or higher) without dropouts, but for Tidal, this feeds the Roon-decoded-but-not-rendered file into the LSX.
Am I correct (I’m a newbie) that the only way to get rendered files for Tidal into my LSX is if there were an MQA-capable DAC between Roon and the LSX? And, given the limitations on the LSX inputs, would I need a DAC with an ethernet input and an ethernet output - and does such an animal exist?
Ultimately, my ears don’t hear a difference between the Roon-delivered decoded/non-rendered Tidal file and the presumably decoded/rendered file when I use the LSX’s Tidal Direct capabilities. But I’d love to get a fully decoded/rendered performance, if I could, using Roon.
Any thoughts (or, given my lack of knowledge, corrections to my premises)?
Thanks as always for your help.
The short answer is you can’t.
For those who really care about MQA rendering, DSP speaker invalidates that rendered analog signal.
So don’t worry about that, and enjoy your current setup.
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That’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Thanks!
With regard to my settings screen shot January 26. Do not copy settings like this. Zen DAC is ‘Renderer only’.
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Hi Stuart, you can now get the fully decoded/rendered performance by bypassing the Roon function and using the new Cambridge Audio DACMAGIC 200M. (a bit the reverse, but they get good reviews).
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Thanks, Hans; I was looking at that Cambridge unit but ultimately I’m happier with Roon functionality than needing the full MQA decoding/rendering, and I’m relying on Qobuz virtually all the time. But always appreciate a solution to a problem - thanks!
So separate issue is that if you have an ifi Zen Dac (v1) and you use it as an MQA render you get an annoying “gap” between tracks. Fine if your music has gaps but not so good if it doesn’t. Raised a support ticket with iFi who confirmed the issue and said that there is no current solution. If you turn off the MQA render and allow Roon to do both parts the issue goes away - but no purple light !
My reply is a bit late (busy with business acquisition for when corona ends 
I don’t mind having no purple light.
After all, the proof of the pudding is in the hearing.
Kind regards
Roon will only do the first decode. It does not do the render part of MQA. AFAIK, no software does as it is tied to hardware.
Brennan,
I had the exact same problem, and your settings instructions fixed my issue with the same DAC
perfectly.
Thank you VERY much,
Bill Costello
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