Quboz pays over 4 times more than Tidal per stream to the artists. So I’m somewhat suspicious of Tidal’s “pay the artists” $2 plan. They know that the HiFi Plus plan will only be a tiny part of their subscribers.
And I’m not so excited about paying Adele or JayZ yet more money. Would be more appealing if that $2 was targeted towards artists who aren’t big time yet.
It’s targeted to the artist you play the most. My first payment went to Dream Theater which made me happy.
I like the idea but need to see how it develops further in the new year as planned. Hopefully it progresses as promised, and that it will be individualised so it doesn’t go to to the big artists, who I rarely play
I’ve found that mastering matters most and that 16/44 can sound extremely good.
On higher priced, more revolving gear, high res of well mastered titles can absolutely sound better yet. On lower level gear the differences are less obvious.
I have over 400 SACDs (DSD). The ones that are from a high quality master blow 16/44 out of the water.
This thread is a holiday gift for the ages. Thanks for starting it.
Binh-ton. Google HD Plex. I have their 400 watt lps and it’s been a great addition to my system. Four rails, two are fixed and two are adjustable. The fixed rails are standard at 19v, but I asked to have mine made at 12v. No charge and only added two weeks to delivery.
It powers my internet satellite (Orbi), the Zen at 15v, a TiVo and a fire stick. It’s silent and sounds much better than the wall warts it replaced. It’s in your budget. Good luck.
DancingSea - the Best Buy deal on Tidal is tough to beat. I did it in September and have never looked back. I pay less for Tidal Hi-Fi than I do for my kid’s Spotify account.
I fully agree and my gear is mostly MidFi so that might well be the tell tale part from my listening.
Also as you said there Mastering matters greatly in this process.
A lot of MQA conversions have not been of the highest quality, which is understandable given how much music needed to be converted.
Does Roon Core decode and render MQA?
Interesting review of power supplies…. He’s fond of the aforementioned Plex.
Looks like HDPlex only has the 300W for $685. Good to know that you can ask to change the fixed rail of 19V to 12V. Also looking at the Keces P3 for $430. It has 2 rails of 9V and 12V. I think I can use the 9V for ZS and 12V for the DAC. Try to find some review of Keces.
@Binh_Ton I’ve not owned a Keces, but several very knowledgeable audiophiles on the PS Audio forums swear by them. I have ordered stuff from Arthur Power of Power Holdings and he’s a good dude.
Have no idea how Keces compares to the Plex. My biased generalization is that Plex is less audiophile, but that’s based on not much.
I’ve answered this elsewhere. There is no software solution for rendering MQA. The most that can be done is what’s usually referred to as “the first unfold” or MQA Core Decoding. My understanding is that rendering requires hardware (DAC) specific filters, so subsequent unfolds can not be completed in software.
Unlike other MQA Core Decoder solutions, Roon can apply DSP, including PEQ, Convolution, volume leveling, etc, and then preserve MQA signaling so that a downstream MQA DAC can complete Rendering. This is an unusual feature that, as far as I’m aware, is unique to Roon.
@Binh_Ton looks like he raised prices a bit. Sorry for the outdated info and wrong wattage. There are some reviews around, and FWIW, more than a few Stereophile and other reviewers us the HD Plex. Just getting all the wall worts out of my system has been a big positive.
Aloha David!
I found the following on the Roon website. While it doesn’t use the word render, it does state that one can enjoy the full glory of MQA with Roon and a non MQA Dac. Not sure how Roon’s handling compares though.
“ How does Roon handle MQA content?
Roon has partnered with MQA Ltd to properly support decoding and handling MQA files and streams end to end. This new feature allows all Roon users – those with MQA-capable hardware and those without – to experience MQA content to the fullest extent possible with their audio hardware.
It is important to know that your device must be used in Exclusive Mode to be able to play MQA (and DSD) content.”
No. It says, “experience MQA content to the fullest extent possible with their audio hardware.” This does not imply the full MQA experience. Your experience will be limited by the capabilities of your DAC, not Roon. Said another way, Roon will deliver as much MQA as possible, within the limitations of your hardware.
It may be just me, but MQA Ltd. seems to enjoy putting out vague descriptions like this. I wish they would be more straightforward. This does not help their credibility.
@David_Snyder Transparency has never been a high priority for MQA 
So is that the only way to experience MQA to its fullest is with a MQA DAC?
Hi,
Has anyone compared Limetree bridge II or I with the zen stream (I’m still in the return period and might want to wait for a 2nd hand limetree 
, zen stream seems a bit bass heavy -with the noname 12v PSU-
You set it in the device settings under MQA capabilities.
Standard practice is for Roon to do the first unfold and pass it on for the second stage or playback. This allows MQA playback on non MQA hardware.
But you can choose between Renderer, decode and Renderer, decode only, render Only and no MQA support.
My Stream had always been set to Decode and Renderer when I had MQA to listen too and all the lights came on the Stream (besides DSD)
Yes. Perhaps I can illustrate this is with some screenshots of Roon’s complete signal path with different tracks and settings. I’ll use a DAC that can function as an MQA Full Decoder or as a Renderer. I can simulate the behavior of less capable DACs by disabling some of these features in Roon’s settings.
Here’s the signal path when playing a 352.8 kHz MQA Studio Master to a DAC that is a full decoder:
Here, Roon Core authenticates the stream as “MQA Studio” and shows the original sampling rate of 352.8 kHz. It sends the 24-bit, 44.1 kHz stream from TIDAL, with no further processing, to the endpoint. The DAC then internally decodes the MQA 44.1 kHz stream to 88.2 kHz (in XMOS firmware) and completes subsequent unfolds, rendering it with a bandwidth of 352.8 kHz before converting to analog.
If I “lie” to Roon, telling it that this DAC is only an MQA Renderer, we get this signal path instead for the same track:
We see that Core is handling MQA authentication and Core Decoding. Note that the processing speed is slower now because of this extra work. Roon sends the decoded 88.2 kHz stream to the endpoint where the DAC internally completes the final unfolds, rendering as it did previously.
If I now tell Roon that the DAC has no MQA capabilities, we see this signal path:
As in the previous example, Core does MQA Authentication and Core Decoding. It sends the 88.2 kHz results of the first unfold to the endpoint without MQA Signaling since that would just be noise that a non-MQA DAC would be unable to process. The DAC converts the results to analog just as it would do for any 24-bit, 88.2 kHz PCM content.
As you can see, without an MQA DAC, you’re unable to enjoy the full 352.8 kHz bandwidth that was, supposedly, encoded into the original stream. The best you can do is 88.2 or 96 kHz, depending on the timebase used for encoding. I’m intentionally ignoring debate over the benefits (or not) of this extra bandwidth. 
Most new MQA content on TIDAL is encoded with lower sampling rates. Here, MQA offers no additional bandwidth, so I assume the only benefits come from temporal deblurring with hardware-specific filters internal to the DAC. If I play one of these tracks with the DAC configured as an MQA Renderer, we see this signal path:
Here, the DAC is correctly rendering the stream with the original sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz. However, if I send the same stream to a non-MQA DAC, we get this signal path instead:
Interesting, yes? The MQA DAC correctly renders this stream as 44.1 kHz while the non-MQA DAC gets an 88.2 kHz decoded stream from Core. Which is better? Well, the original encoding was at 44.1 kHz, so the correct results can only be achieved by decoding at 44.1 kHz. The non-MQA DAC is converting an 88.2 kHz stream, but there is no useful information included in the extra bandwidth.
Here’s where things get interesting. Roon Core can perform all sorts of useful DSP on signals before sending them to a low-power endpoint for playback. This is a fairly typical example for me:
Core is performing MQA Authentication and Core Decoding, volume leveling to a target of -16 LUFS, binaural crossfeed (for playback to headphones), and PEQ. It then restores MQA signaling so that the results can be properly rendered in hardware by a downstream MQA DAC. Here’s the bottom half of
Signal path:
The MQA DAC receives the 96 kHz decoded stream with MQA signaling from Core and renders at the original sampling rate of 192 kHz, unaware that the bits have been modified via DSP upstream. The benefits of hardware specific deblurring filters and whatever else MQA does remain fully intact.
From what I’ve read, MQA Core Decoding (the bit that Roon can do) delivers about 80% of the benefits of MQA, so if you don’t have an MQA DAC, you’re not missing out too much. But, to get full MQA functionality, including accurate decoding of the original sampling rate, you need an MQA DAC.
Hope this helps.
Disclaimer: I’m not convinced that MQA offers much in the way of real-world benefits, but it usually does not sound terrible. IMHO, sound quality comes down to mastering quality rather than delivery format. A Doug Sax or alan Yoshida master at 256 kbps MP3 sounds better to me than most of the DSD64 or 192 kHz PCM recordings out there.
Yes. One thing you’ll notice in common with most (not all but most) MQA DACs is they use an XMOS USB architecture and an ESS DAC chip. This is not coincidence. This combination basically gives DAC manufacturers an off the shelf reference implementation for MQA with some of the work provided by the USB chip and the filters provided by the ESS DAC chip. It’s a hardware solution and MQA will not allow these two things to happen in software.
