Why can't Roon both decode and render MQA?

[Peter_Bruderer]

I spent quite some time to understand what MQA really does:

MQA disappointing

There is a lot of confusion, what MQA really does. Here is what happens, when you wrap a normal CD into a 44.1/16 MQA file. A normal CD has 44.1k samples with 16 bit resolution. This allows to represent all frequencies between 0 and 22.05 kHz. From absolut silence to the loudest signal we have a range of 96 dB. Keep in mind, there is NO CD with more dynamic range then 40 dB. The noise floor is somewhere around 35 dB. Also keep in mind, that more than 120 dB will severely hurt humans. With 8 …

Theoretically all this can be done in software. Also a streamer could do the rendering and send it to the DAC. But MQA does not allow it license wise.

The MQA filters which are applied in the DAC are minimum phase, slow roll off. On most newer DACs you have an option to select your filters. And this is one of them.

@Jazzfan_NJ you are right, comparing the user numbers of Spotify, Apple, Amazon, TenCent together, Tidal is less then 1%. From all these 500 million users of the top 4, almost all are happy to listen to compressed music. But I guess this is off topic here.