Roon will stream MQA, but not play purchased MQA album correctly

Will_Pisula · July 18, 2018, 10:34pm

In my office, I have an MBP running High Sierra 10.13.6 beta 6 and Roon Core 1.5 with an Audioquest Dragonfly Red and some powered KEF speakers. When I stream Tidal Masters through Roon, the Dragonfly LED turns blue. I purchased an MQA album from onkyomusic.com today, and while Roon recognizes it as MQA (has MQA symbol on album thumbnail, authentication says MQA Studio, and source also indicates MQA), the Dragonfly does not light up blue (it’s green). I have the Dragonfly set as a “decoder and renderer”. Any ideas? Thanks.

P.S. the same purchased MQA album does get recognized and played as MQA on my home system and my DAP, so I don’t think it’s the album.

eric · July 18, 2018, 10:44pm

@Will_Pisula ---- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us! The insight is greatly appreciated!

Moving froward, to help aide in why you may be experiencing this behavior with the mentioned MQA CD, may I very kindly ask you to please provide me with the following:

A brief but accurate description of your current setup using this link as a guide.
Please provide a copy of a track to us that is displaying this issue in Roon for in house testing. You can send the media to us either via a shared dropbox link or another upload service of your choosing in a PM addressed to me.

Thanks!
-Eric

Will_Pisula · July 18, 2018, 11:35pm

I’m using a 2017 MacBook Pro with 16 GB ram and a 512 GB hard drive. The MBP is running 10.13.6 beta 6. I’m using Roon Core 1.5 Build 334. An Audioquest Jitterbug and Audioquest Dragonfly Red are connected to the MBP, and feed a pair of KEF LS 50’s.

john · July 19, 2018, 1:19am

Hello @Will_Pisula,

In the “Device Setup” screen for the DragonFly Red zone, set the “MQA Capabilities” to “Renderer Only”.

-John

Will_Pisula · July 19, 2018, 1:23am

Here’s a link to the first track on the MQA album in question: [downloaded and removed by support]

I tried the first 5 tracks, all with the same result.

Will_Pisula · July 19, 2018, 1:25am

John-

When I set the Dragonfly to renderer only, i get a pink light, but still no blue.

john · July 19, 2018, 4:01am

Hello @Will_Pisula,

When the DragonFly Red has recognized a Core Decoded MQA Stream and enabled it’s MQA Renderer stage, the light on the unit should turn a pinkish “magenta”. You can also confirm that the MQA Rendering is happening by opening the Signal Path in Roon. You should see the MQA Renderer stage happening before the “Analog Output” of the device.

-John

eric · July 23, 2018, 4:20pm

Hi @Will_Pisula ---- Thank you for the follow ups and my apologies for the delay on my end. A few things moving forward.

Confirming that the media has been received and is in our queue for review. Once we have completed our evaluation I will be sure to share the tech team’s findings with you asap. Additionally, I also wanted to check in and see if you were able to review @john’s latest post from the above.

Thanks!
-Eric

eric · July 24, 2018, 1:51pm

Hi @Will_Pisula ----- I wanted to reach out because I can confirm that I am having no issues with the provided track and that I am making the same observation during playback as mentioned in John’s comment above.

-Eric