Unfortunately, and contrary to the Stereophile article, I have it directly from Chris at Auralic that the article is incorrect about MQA.
“I saw that in the review also. Jon despite many attempts to contact him would not get back to me. I just wanted to see how he was getting on with the Altair and if he had any questions. So he didn’t get any info from me. I am pretty sure Xuanqian didn’t tell him that we would be licensing for MQA either. As far as I know we aren’t doing any MQA licensing, not even for the new products. The person I get my info from is Xuanqian.”
This was what I thought I had been told by Xuanqian after I sent him the preprint of the Altair review in order to prepare a manufacturer’s comment.However, I now can’t now find that email so it is possible that we screwed up.
AURALiC has wasted a lot of money for the expensive 2016 CES promote something which has been integrated (after spend some money on software engineer hours) but the feature will probably never be able to release to public.
(After reading this post for the 5th time, I suddenly realize that it also implies that software engineer hours (such as mine) are cheap compared to a CES promotion )
we are also working on a private software based MQA decoder to send signal to your DAC using AURALiC’s latest upsampling algorithm. (Disclaimer: this is not going to use any MQA property software code.)
Auralic Facebook 2017-2-13:
Something everyone should read and think:
(link to Linn “MQA is Bad for Music” article)
Yes exactly… That is currently what happens for users of the Mytek Brooklyn and several Meridian products (808,818,Explorer, Prime), the Bluesound range and other MQA Decoders
Roon offers up the MQA track in Bit Perfect mode… Allowing the MQA device to fully Decode or Unfold it to its full resolution
So, when Roon strikes a deal with MQA licensing (if ever), the decoding / MQA unfolding would be done by Roon, and I would get MQA in full regardless whether my DAC is MQA licensed or not?
No, you will get the first part of the MQA unfolding.
The second part you will get only if you buy a new MQA licensed DAC.
Even if Roon is struck by that MQA deal.
I have a Meridian Explorer DAC, a MQA Licensed one, and I think you dont miss much.
If Roon implements a software decode similar to the one implemented in Tidal’s desktop application then you will get a partial software decoding of the MQA stream (up to 24/96). It is possible, but unlikely, that Roon could implement full MQA decoding as this requires DAC correction that so far has been reserved for hardware-based decoding.
I suppose I am confused by what I am seeing in the Roon DSP signal path. For instance, on the 2L Nordic Sound album, I see Tidal Master FLAC Source as 44.1/24. Next in the string is Bit Depth Conversion, 24 bit to 64 bit, float. Then -3db headphone adjustment. Then Sample Rate Conversion (44.1 to 384 for my Oppo HA-1 DAC). Then Bit Depth conversion, 64 bit float to 32 bit, and finally RAAT to ASIO Output to the HA-1. With all that conversion going on, I assumed that MQA decoding was taking place, but perhaps not.
BTW, I know the 384khz is way overkill, but I set it out high to determine if the CPU loading on my NUC i7 is lower with the Roon DSP vs. HQP. In every instance, the fan runs much less using the Roon DSP.
Let’s wait to see the final solution shall we? The main thing is we have a choice. If that prevents a pleasing blue light from coming on we won’t be jumping off motorway bridges will we?
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