TIDAL Songs Not Playing on CXNv2, Potential MQA Issue (ref#OTG7CC)

[Matthias_D]

What’s happening?

· Other

Describe the issue

Certain TIDAL songs don't play on my CXNv2. I have the same issue when playing directly from TIDAL. My assumption was that this is related to MQA, which my streamer does not support. My understanding was also that roon would take care of transcoding these streams into something compatible with my streamer.

The version of the last song I've experienced this with was

Primus - My Name Is Mud
FLAC 192 khz, 24bit.

Best regards!

Describe your network setup

Wired connection via Netgear managed switch

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

MQA can be played by any player, the question is just at which resolution it plays. However, the example in your screenshot isn’t even MQA, it’s regular FLAC.

It’s strange, though. I tried playing the same track and the track as such works, at least in my region (Germany).

As you have the same problem when playing directly from Tidal, it doesn’t look to be a Roon issue.

[Jim_F]

You are trying to play a 192/24 Flac file, not MQA. You are also having Roon upsample to 384kHz. Turn off the Muse upsampling in Roon and see if it will play. I guess it’s possible you are upsampling somewhere else, IDK.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Jim_F

You are also having Roon upsample to 384kHz.

As you noticed, this happens after RAAT to the Cambridge. The Cambridge website confirms:

DIGITAL FILTER
2nd Generation ATF2 up-sampling to 24-bit/384khz

[Matthias_D]

Hey!

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I’m also located in Germany, the track plays find on all my other devices (SqueezeBox, Squeezelite). I looked into the CXNv2 device setup in roon and modified the defaults for testing purposes.

The default for Max sample rate (PCM) is 192kHz, Max bits per sample (PCM) is 32.
Turning the former down to 96kHz make the song play, but by my understanding, this should not be required. With 192kHz, the song appears to be playing on the CXNv2, but no audio to be heard.

Best

Matthias

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

The CXN V2 upsamples everything to 384 kHz itself. It’s part of the design.

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

It’s happily playing here using StreamMagic.

Same goes for Roon. It is a regular FLAC and doesn’t contain MQA.

[Matthias_D]

Hi again!

I believe at this point it’s safe to say that my problem is unrelated to MQA. The interesting thing is that the above track plays neither from TIDAL nor from Qobuz in this quality.

This does however:

Also this:

Edit:

After a bit more actual reading, the root cause appears to be that I’m currently limited to optical SPDIF. Sorry for not doing my homework earlier.

BR

Matthias

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

Yeah it’s the optical limitation. 192 kHz is only possible by either using the analog outputs (RCA or XLR) or coax digital.

I’m running my CXN V2 into my DacMagic 200M by using its coaxial digital output. I prefer the sound coming from the DacMagic. And it also has an MQA decoder build in, so its MQA LED lights up when an MQA track is being played.

Btw. You can still play 192 kHz tracks with Roon. You just have to set Roon to limit the max sample rate to 96 kHz.

This way Roon will downsample a 192 kHz track to 96 kHz so it will play succesfully.

[Matthias_D]

Thank you @SandsOfArrakis,

I figured that out. I will eventually go hunting for a different amp. For now I at least understand what’s going on.

BR