Talking Schiit about DSD and MQA

[miklats]

@evand

Having both R2R and Sigma Delta I’ll take a good R2R implementation over a good Sigma Delta everytime. R2R presentation has less of an edge/ more of an organic feel to it.

I agree to that. I bought the basic Schiit Multibit Dac in July for my casual office music listening.
Now I will switch to the Yggi for my main system. I like the sound that much more.

[rrwwss52 (Robert)]

I picked a used Gumby recently myself. It has a very pleasant sound to it.

[mrvco]

It’s their choice. I’ll never understand why some people get so bent out of shape over the Schiit boys’ decisions on how they choose to run their own privately held company. It’s not like there aren’t a gazillion companies making DACs that support DSD.

[Paula_Dickerson]

I have had a yggy for about 2 years. Maybe when pigs fly the Schiit will add a MQA upgrade, until then I have had Roon since January with microrendu waiting for Roon to add MQA. I’ll be good then.

I am in 100% agreement with Schiit on DSD. Where is the music? I searched all the major download $$ sites and there is a very small amount of music.

MQA or another cooler named hires implementation will happen at least I am ready when it happens.

[dpstjp]

Lots of DSD from ripped SACDs. Hopefully most of these can be streamed via MQA encodes to reduce the cost of hard-to-find SACD purchases for those who haven’t already invested large amounts purchasing the discs themselves.

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

MQA is, as I understand things, concerned only with the authenticated original master as signed off by the Artist, producers and or copyright holders.
That doesn’t sound like a platform for streaming Ripped SACD’s unless they satisfy the above criteria.

Am I wrong?

[dpstjp]

Not wrong, I was suggesting that releases from the master tapes of the recordings which are currently available on SACDs will be made available in MQA format.

You can see it already in many of the new releases including Solti’s Ring for example.

[ncpl (Nick)]

There are nearly 6000 titles in MQA on Tidal. This is progress. The latest batch sees some great jazz titles by the big boys.

[miklats]

@Chrislayeruk

concerned only with the authenticated original master as signed off by the Artist

That was a good one.

[Paula_Dickerson]

Hopefully there’s a metadata repository being created from all the forum users that disparage MQA and through the haha “licensing engine” are prevented from unfolding MQA. That was a good one.

[DarwinOS]

Funny how vendors who don’t make products for a certain format or make their money on other formats slam that format…

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

There have always been questions about the objectivity of people who’s sales model (downloading) is potentially broken by products like streamed MQA. Also it doesn’t take a great deal of intellect to see who is backing their product like Schiit does, over simply slagging off the potential rivals. What I see is a thoughtful discussion on what will be required in the marketplace to make them consider MQA. I believe that since this was recorded they then made clear they would not support MQA, but not for the reasons many think. I think it is because the model required for allowing MQA on your product is that you give it to them and tell them exactly how it works. For those using off the shelf chipsets they have no intellectual value in their product. For Schiit, it is handing the Crown Jewels to a rival. I know there is an impasse between MQA and a number of manufacturers because they could implement MQA tomorrow but won’t because it means handing intimate knowledge of their products to a rival. So the reasons are not because they believe MQA to be bad, it is because they want to preserve their intellectual property.

[joel]

@Henry_McLeod

there is an impasse between MQA and a number of manufacturers because they could implement MQA tomorrow but won’t because it means handing intimate knowledge of their products to a rival

It’s also likely that certain manufacturer’s philosophical views on digital audio conflict with those from MQA. For example, the Chord Dave up-samples CD using filters with a huge number of taps; and Schiit has its “closed form” up-sampler. For Chord and Dave, these are differentiators / USPs. OTOH, an MQA-certified DAC requires use of MQA processing with MQA material. It’s simply not possible to combine both approaches with MQA material and achieve an MQA-certified output.

[stevebythebay (Steve Schaffer)]

Interesting. However, it flies in the face of other firms like dCS and Berkeley Audio, each of which either has or will soon offer MQA rendering or a first unfold on their products. Either they rely on solid IP contracts, or feel that the areas where such information transfer is demanded is not that important to their ultimate product value/sales.

[Paula_Dickerson]

Roon it would seem does not have intellectual property around the DAC like Schiit and Chord Dave so whats the delay? The early buzz made it sound like MQA first unfold would be available first part of the year. We haven’t seen a Roon update in last month so maybe they are getting ready to announce a next relaease

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

The importance of MQA to any brand means it won’t be sneaked out as part of a maintenance release. It will be reviewed by the usual suspects ensuring reviews of its impending brilliance will be in the ether before any release. 1.3 Roon is pretty stable and apart from vendor specific updates much of the support effort is directed at people new to the product or long standing hard to fix gremlins. Personally I sense a calm before the storm of our next big step!

[andybob (Andrew Cox)]

I’m afraid no one knows Paul. Those that do know are subject to non-disclosure agreements, meaning the Forum contains only speculation. All that we really know is that Roon wants this to happen asap, but as yet it hasn’t. After it’s all done and dusted we’ll buy the devs some (virtual) drinks and ask for the warts and all story.