Settings to get Lossless output to SMSL M500 with MQA tracks

Mauricio_Surmani · October 11, 2019, 3:36pm

Hi, tryng to configure my New DAC SMSL M500.

I‘m not able to make it work LOSSLESS reproducing MQA on TIDAL, it goes to ENHANCED.

Reproducing Hi-fi a have LOSSLESS.

Any solution?

ged_hickman1 · October 11, 2019, 3:37pm

The enhanced refers to the MQA decoding. If you turn off all MQA decoding it will show as lossless.

Mauricio_Surmani · October 11, 2019, 5:44pm

Ges, thanks for your answer.
But if I do so i have no MQA at The DAC!
This is not The solution…

ged_hickman1 · October 11, 2019, 6:17pm

I think you misunderstood, you are getting lossless but because there is MQA in the path it is shown as enhanced. Always, you can’t change that.

Jim_F · February 15, 2020, 7:52pm

Roon calls it enhanced because of the MQA processing. Don’t worry about it.

Andy_Spinks · February 19, 2020, 7:28pm

If you change the device settings from MQA “Renderer and Decoder” to “Renderer only” it might show the lossless symbol instead of enhanced, but I’m not convinced this isn’t a bug. I just returned the m500 I was trying out, but I don’t recall it showing enhanced symbol for MQA Decoding on the Raspberry Pi.

If you haven’t already, be sure to update the firmware on the m500. I don’t think there is a special driver for Mac, but check that also.

ged_hickman1 · February 19, 2020, 7:32pm

Nope if MQA is in the path and the roon or the DAC does an unfold then it shows as enhanced.

Andy_Spinks · February 19, 2020, 7:42pm

That must be a MAC thing. I dug back and found a couple of screen caps I took with the M500 running on a Linux SBC. I can’t remember the exact settings, but I’m pretty sure one is with first unfold done by Roon, the other with both unfolds done by the DAC. No enhanced symbol in either case.

ged_hickman1 · February 19, 2020, 8:06pm

I think they changed the screen so if they are old screen shots…
This is my Android phone the server is roon ROCK

Andy_Spinks · February 20, 2020, 2:04am

The screen caps I posted are from 3 weeks ago. Your signal path is showing “enhanced” because you have DSP turned on.

ged_hickman1 · February 20, 2020, 2:51am

Yes your probably right there. Forgot about DSP. I don’t have an MQA DAC, for those that do is the secondary fold an enhancement do you think?

wklie · February 20, 2020, 3:57am

If Roon knows about MQA renderering occuring in the DAC, Roon declares it to be Enhanced. This is by design, this is not a bug.

If Roon does not know whether MQA rendering is occurring in the DAC, it is declared to be lossless if no other DSP is done.