gmt why are you acting like this? you asked about other streamers and I said I was not able to list all of them that has nothing to do with not understanding the concepts. I said that there were others out there who who maby be able to list other streaming services or with a little research you might be able to discover them yourself. Good luck.
Hi Richard
Your unedited message made it to me (and I donāt have a problem with you posting the word asshole if you feel that strongly about my response 
- Iāve been called worse and its usually proceeded by another word!)
I believe that you are a little confused about your terminology - you seem to suggest that Roon is not a streamer because it takes its internet based music from Tidal. Roon is a streamer because it streams local files and files stored on the Tidal server. You think that Roon canāt stream without the Tidal desktop app - this not the case. You think that MQA cannot ever be decoded in Roon - this is not the case. Maybe something is getting lost in translation or you donāt understand the concepts. Given that youāre the one that is asking all of the questionsā¦
xxxx
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are you reading my posts? I know this is an international comunity and possible english is not your first language. Iāve asked this question in the past because what Iām saying is miss-understood. When I talk about streaming services I mean programs that can deliver files from the larger internet, for you to calssify ROON in that catogory means that there is some language problem on my part.
J.W. von Goetheās: 'In der BeschrƤnkung zeigt sich erst der Meister." (1802)
Going back to an earlier question, how does Roon know a file is MQA? Someone replied above that Roon will know from the metadata, which may be true. However, since DACs can identify MQA from the PCM data, so can Roon (in theory). That way it would be able to identify MQA files that have no metadata.
Iām not sure an MQA file can have no metadata.
MQA can be encoded in PCM. PCM files do not necessarily have any metadata. Even if they do have metadata, it is NOT sent to the DAC. Yet DACs can identify the file as MQA. Therefore, there is data embedded in the PCM that tells that it is MQA encoded.
MQA files (or bitstreams ā as the DAC sees them) have marker codes embedded that identify the data format. As you said, this is how a DAC knows that itās receiving MQA data.
As part of the analysis process that Roon goes through when media is added to the library it does traverse the entire file (not just the tags) to compute dynamic range and check for corruption. MQA files that are not properly tagged could (should) be identified by this process.
As for files without metadata this is an unlikely scenario. Thereās no provision for an end-user to make their own MQA files so (in theory) 100% of the content will either be purchased downloads, which should have embedded tags, or streams from Tidal (and others) which should identify the content to the playback software.
MQA is using a standard FLAC format as the container so itās conceivable that an MQA file could be wiped of its tags, but this is highly unlikely.
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Hi Richard
Yes I read your posts and English is my first language. I pointed out that there may be some terminology problems. You seem to be changing the meaning of āmusic streamingā to mean a product exclusively delivering music via the internet in a streamed format. Youāre definition of a music streaming is not what most people on this forum or the developers would agree on.
Saying that - If you have a Tidal account you can use Tidal through Roon without the need for any other software. Itās not Roonās music but it is still providing the interface to stream music from the internet - it therefore both a local and internet music streaming player that provides a service.
Either way - Roon plans to be able to unfold MQA files both from Tidal and locally stored files to enabled non certified MQA DACs to play unfolded MQA files. The amount of unfolding that will be capable is unclear at this stage. This is a lot for a database to achieve which is why Roon is more than a database. Roon will have the technology to manipulate Tidal streams before it gets to the endpoint. Does this make sense?
Cheers
Tom
Tom,
Iāve had a ROON and Tidal account for some time I use ROON to play misic files from my NAS drive and attached SSD through my modified MacMini used for music only. I subscribe to Tidal to play music "streamed " from the internet. Recently Iāve used Tidal desktop to procure MQA files from the internet then transfered them using the āfavoriteā feature in Tidal to transfer the MQA files to ROON to play through my local ROON system. All my question on the thred are about how ROON will incorperate MQA files streamed through Tidal. One of my "sub systems can use the Meridian Explorer2 and I do now enjoy complete MQA āunfoldingā of files from the Tidal desktop app to ROON. I do not care that much about super high bit rates and frequencies but I believe that fixing of ātime smearingā caused by the digitizing process of the past may be the greatest feature of the MAQ process and is the feature I look forward to the most.
Richard
The tidal desktop app does not unfold files in Roon. If you remove the Tidal desktop app from your PC, Roon will still play the MQA file to your explorer 2. The Explorer 2 will unfold the MQA file.
A better description would be that you can enjoy complete MQA unfolding of files from Tidalās integration with Roon. It could be described as the Tidal Roon Player or the Tidal Roon plug in but the Tidal Desktop Application is a specific piece of software that allows you to play Tidal through a Tidal only dedicated app on a PC or Mac. This is not the same software that you would find on a tablet , phone or Roon.
When you favourite a file in Tidal Desktop Application, it doesnāt not transfer the MQA files to Roon. What it does is it creates a pointer to the files in Tidal that Roon has access to. The files are not transferred, only your preference of liking the file is transferred (adding it to your tidal favourites is ).
Cheers
Tom
You can verify for yourself that the Tidal app is not involved in streaming Tidal content through Roon: delete the Tidal app from you computer, then play one of the MQA albums through Roon, and you will find that the Explorer gets the MQA file and lights up the MQA indicator.
The reason Roon can receive a Tidal stream is that Tidal exposes a network protocol, a description of how to communicate with Tidal, and Roon can implement code using that protocol and act as a network streaming client. This is a standard approach.
Great, Thank you