MQA will.play up to 384/24 and I have done it in Roon. Athe DAC is higher spec than 96/24 it’s the usb that’s limited. PCM can’t go higher than the limit of the usb but MQA can as 96/24 MQA can expand to higher. It’s not hard to understand.
Your not getting the mqa orfs renderer for second decode your DACs not setup correcly in Roon. All your getting is Roons first unfold and not the second from the DAC.
Yet again your not getting the 2nd unfold showing in your signal path. Something is wrong it should show mqa orfs renderer after all the DSP and that will be 192/24. I have had mine playing back at 352/24. Cant show you as I am not at home this weekend also this was reported by Darko audio on his video about it. The dac does the unfolding to the final resolution in MQA of it could not it would not be MQA capable DAC.
The Dragonfly Red tops out at 96kHz, but it will do MQA rendering (sometimes called second unfold) if the Roon Settings pass the Render information through to it.
The Cobalt seems to have the same capability. The light on the Dragonfly says what it is doing:
Once attached to your laptop or smartphone, and selected as means of audio output, the DAC’s LED will shine one of six colours to indicate sampling rate: red for standby, green for 44.1kHz, blue for 48kHz, yellow for 88.2 kHz, light blue for 96kHz or purple when decoding MQA.
The various MQA settings in Roon are described on this KB page.
James above post shows Roon doing the first unfold and the Rendering information being passed through to the Dragonfly.
Archimago had an interesting article on the three Dragonflies.
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Well, maybe it does.
A Pro-Ject Pre Box s2 digital is a very nice one.
Is that a portable?
Yep. The USB interface of the Dragonfly tops out at 96 incoming. However, the internal DAC can do much higher. So, the 2nd unfold or rendering of MQA is basically an upsampling to the original resolution rate, which means that the Dragonfly gets 96 (or 88.2) MQA in, and if the MQA information instructs the DAC to upsample the 96 to higher then it will; and then output it.
So in the last screenshot, Roon is doing the first MQA unfold, applying the Crossfeed while keeping the MQA Signaling, sending the 88.2 through the USB to the Dragonfly. The Dragonfly during the MQA rendering is upsampling it to 352.8 and sending that analog out to your headphones.
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I’m not sure you are correct. In the last photo, I am sending an MQA 352.8 file from Tidal to Roon. The MQA file is folded down to 44.1 and the Roon software does the first unfold to 88.2. Then, the Dragonfly Cobalt does the remaining unfolds back to the native file size of 352.8.
I can’t guarantee that’s what is going on here, but that is exactly how MQA works.
Well, you are sending a 24/44.1 file to Roon.
That is exactly what I said. Once past the 96k USB bottleneck, the Dragonfly DAC can up-sample and output higher than 96k rates. And the rendering step is not an unfold, it is an Up-sample. Two very different processes.
Again. Not what I said. I was very specific. The 2ndary Rendering Stage, is a filter select and target sample rate up-sample. I said nothing about the unfold. The 2ndary stage is NOT called an unfold, very specifically by MQA themselves, it is a “rendering” stage. There is a reason for the differences in nomenclature.
Hi James,
There are two stages of MQA:
- Decoding, often referred to as 1st unfold (2x sample rate)
- Rendering, often referred to as 2rd unfold (Original sample rate, but limited to what the DAC supports)
The MQA rendering process is upsampling rather than unfolding, but there is a little more going on than just unfolding as it selects a filter that is matched (or paired) to the way that file was MQA encoded.
MQA is a contentious subject and MQA have not published specific details so a lot is unfortunately down to speculation. We have specific forum area for it, so best to read / post over their for more info rather than here … otherwise this topic will devolve into yet another MQA war.
Thanks. It seems that many responses are pointed in a certain direction depending on the person’s view of MQA.
Very true, it is somewhat of a polarised discussion… one I personally stay out of most of the time.
But enough of MQA technicalities, finding you a good DAC is what this topics about 
Thanks Carl. However, it now seems to me my Dragonfly Cobalt is what I need. My next decision will be whether or not to purchase a Nucleus. For now, my Dell XPS 15 is working great running the Roon core. I’ve burned through over 50 gigs of Verizon data while on this trip.
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3 posts were split to a new topic: Diana Krall - Turn Up The Quiet (192Khz) : Qobuz (96Khz) vs. Tidal MQA