if one wants the 96/24 audio data, but they lack an MQA capable DAC.
in that case, you’d send the stream to the DAC and no royalty is paid by Roon.
there are 2 reasons you’d unfold in Roon:
your DAC cant unfold (not MQA capable)
you want Roon DSP, which would destroy the MQA data, so it’s impossible to get 96/24 without having Roon do it.
But the true cost of this is that you must “nickel and dime” each customer, which results in annoyance and decreased sales.
To continue your analogy: if one goes to a buffet “all you can eat”, do they get upset that the big guy eats more for the same price? I think they’d have some serious jealousy issues to resolve if that was the case.
I don’t use DSP and plan on never using it. I sure would like back a quarter of the lifetime fee I paid - but most things just don’t work this way. Nothing in life is ‘fair’ - just ask my nine and twelve year olds!
I have mad respect for you since you respond to these posts.
Thank you for answering why customers would want to unfold the MQA signal in Roon
Respectfully, I would state that the business model of an “a la carte” restaurant is significantly different to a “buffet” restaurant. You can buy food at both, but the type of customer and expectations are very different. I would not mix analogies between traditional restaurants and buffet restaurants.
-I don’t care about MQA technology, the company, or the person who invented it. I don’t care. I care about Roon going out of business. I have purchased a lifetime license and (I forgot to mention in my post) I even bought a Roon nucleus. Did you know that the massive company Samsung created a license free version of Dolby Vision (called HDR10+) because they didn’t want to pay royalties to Dolby? In my work, I avoid using copyrighted tools that requires paying a license. I use tools that are free, legal and peer-reviewed. I think that I am acting in a rationale manner, but whatever.
-Every dollar spent on royalties to MQA is money that cannot be spent on other Roon features. Your customers (myself included) know this is the case. I would ask that you give your customers some credit for critical thinking. Maybe you should just put out a statement like “Yeah we pay MQA royalties, but it is basically no money. If the % of our budget devoted to MQA passes a specific threshold, then we will make changes. Until then, stream MQA to your heart’s content.” Just reassure your customers, please. I suspect 95% of the angst about MQA is this exact concern.
-No Hi-Fi evangelist has criticized Tidal for “nickel and dime” practices in the tier pricing. No one has questioned why Tidal charges more for an MQA stream. I don’t think that asking people to pay for ongoing royalty payments is strange.
-If there are any other formats that cause Roon to pay royalties on an ongoing basis, please tell me. I will do my very best not to stream in such a format. Just engage me! Does DSD cost money to stream? how about 24/192, FLAC, etc.
-I was just trying to offer an explanation why there are so many darn posts about MQA.
TLDR:
-I do not want Roon to go out of business. It seems like a confusing business decision to pay royalties on an ongoing basis when the money could be spent on improving your product elsewhere. Roon is a luxury item, so if it does go out of business, all of the customers will be fine (sad, but fine). So, that is something at least.
Big problem is that Qobuz is not available in all territories yet, so many have no choice but Tidal when it comes to integrating with Roon and MQA has taken over there, so no choice but to stream much of the content in MQA and for Roon to provide that function. The onus is on Tidal actually to ditch MQA, thereby not making third party software makers and audio mfg. beholden to an obscure, pay to play format that is really only alive due to Tidal.
Well shucks, turns out some manufactures don’t give you a choice with MQA. This DAC (a Topping model) uses MQA “rendering” filter no matter what the end user does:
In addition to this Topping D90, iFi products (though some of the can still accept older pre-MQA firmware) and Hiby also do not give the consumer an option of not using MQA’s high IMD and out-of-phase filtering scheme.
Unsurprisingly the consumer is better off avoiding manufacturers who do business with MQA altogether just to be sure.
Interesting. Someone on ASR posted asking about this and shortly after the post disappeared with no explanation. Certainly it’s a legitimate question to ask for an explanation?
The issue/question isn’t so much whether or not Topping offers MQA, but rather why does their DAC that lists selectable filters appears not to offer such?
Do you include Roon and Topping in this sweeping statement? Are you suggesting that all users of Roon should abandon it in favour of native apps from streaming services such as Qobuz, Spotify or Apple. Tidal of course must be a no-no because it includes MQA material. I guess you are also suggesting that anyone with a Topping DAC should throw it away and buy something else.
I think there is a sensible mid-point to the argument on avoiding manufacturers/services in order to not be affected by mqa.
I believe that Topping offer 2 variants of their DACs; one being non-mqa and the other being mqa. Clearly if non-mqa material is passing through the mqa decoding pathway in the DAC, this is sub-optimal. If one looks at other manufacturers, this is not necessarily the case: Lumin pass non-mqa source material through a pathway that avoids the mqa decoding pathway, for example.
I think there just needs to be a little homework done to ensure that your non-mqa source material doesn’t get hobbled along the way. Safest bet is to not sub to Tidal and to have a non-mqa DAC (I use Qobuz plus local files and a RME ADI2 FS DAC).
There was talk that mqa ltd were looking at the possibility of forcing all decoding through the mqa pathway whether the source material was mqa or not as part of getting mqa certification. Whilst it’s still conjecture (unless it has got some traction and/or basis in fact), it’s odd to see Topping doing what they have in this instance when no such mandate is in force (again - unless I missed something and it is now the case).
The second sentence refers to comments that sometimes arise, which @robbi_burdeck also addressed, which infer choice is being limited currently by MQA files and DACs, when there are easily accessible alternatives…a point you made well. Even if you have concerns about the non-MQA Topping DAC, there are other very decent alternatives.
Still, as it reads, I quite like the notion of someone who values MQA being intolerant of PCM…
The answer to the question of why some manufacturers support MQA is pretty straight forward!
Manufacturers do so because their market research indicates that many customers want MQA support to be included. They would have no incentive to do so otherwise.
Although there is a very vocal hard-core of people who frequent this forum and who for a number of reasons do not tolerate, let alone like MQA, they don’t speak for everyone. Many people apparently want their DACs (or indeed Roon software) to provide MQA functionality and support, however unpalatable this might be to some.
I do. A basic fact about the market for audio in general, particularly the “High End” (what used to be called “High Fidelity”) is the preponderance of Snake Oil products and marketing. Fact is Roon does not have a competitor really, so they can make alot of mistakes, such as including MQA in their product (or others such as nonsensical UI changes) and get away with it with consumers because we have no other choice (JRiver, Qobuz desktop apps, etc. don’t count).
This is right. I still use an iFi iDAC2 and/or Nano when I travel, but like you say I have to be careful not to update the firmware to the latest version to avoid MQA’s low quality filtering scheme. When they break (assuming they do - they have been solid) they will be replaced by products that don’t suffer MQA. The reality is that audio has too much Snake Oil and consumers will naturally “react” in positive ways against it. Calling out Roon, Topping, iFi, Stereophile, etc. for their anti-consumer contributions to a Snake Oil market is natural and expected.
This is not right, or is rather simplistic. The market/demand for MQA was created by the conditions of the Snake Oil and mythic driven “High End” market. Consumers were told by those who pose as authorities, such as the writers for TAD and Stereophile, that MQA was progress in digital audio. Once the truth of MQA, that it was in fact a step backwards in digital audio quality in addition to being an “end to end” rent scheme, was made known it was too late - demand for MQA already had “momentum”.
The greater/larger part of audio, such as the pro market and general (as opposed to “High End”) audio consumer has utterly ignored MQA as they should since it adds no value. The small, vocal (and in truth often an “astroturfer”) MQA supporter group makes the demand appear larger than it is. MQA will linger on for a while no doubt in a niche capacity (dead man walking and all that), but it’s a dead end as all the other Snake Oil out there is.
The single biggest factor for MQA demand is Tidal. We got tons of MQA requests when Tidal announced they offer free MQA music to HiFi subscribers. People naturally wanted to have a way to maximize their enjoyment of free music. Remember at that time Amazon and Apple did not offer lossless music streaming. Qobuz was available in even less countries than now.
We saw the same thing happening here in Roon forum. Just search for the request posts since that time.
