Why is most Hi Def music available only 16 bit 44 kHz?

I use my Chord Mojo 2 with Roon, but even if I stream from Qobuz, 90% of the tracks are only 44 kHz 16 bit, that’s what my Roon player reports.

Chord Mojo 2 can play DSP, 32 bit and 768 kHz, but where do I find tracks in that high format?

Can the Mojo 2 upsample music to that rate?

Can Roon report the rate played by the Mojo 2, or only the sampling rate of the file fed to the Mojo?

And that still would be 16/44.1 in another package.

Go into your DSP settings in Roon. It should be set to compatibility only. Change that to max PCM rate x 2. Roon will then up-sample everything to the maximum capability of the Chord DAC. Have a listen and see what you think. Find DSP by selecting the speaker icon when playing to the Chord. You have to make the change then enable it.

Hi and welcome, Adam!

First make sure, that Qobuz Streaming Quality is set appropriately …

No, that would be done by Roon and set up in the DSP screen, if you want to try …


then …

click here and see the signal path …

:man_teacher:
Actually, those are all basic questions, which often will be answered better when heading over to Roon’s Help Center and investing some reading time…

Have fun!

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Enabling PCM rate x 2 results in distorted playback.

For Chord devices, don’t do any upsampling; let it take care of this for you.

And, don’t worry about using Redbook with Chord either.

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Because that’s what they are to start with why do you think you’re going to get higher just because your DAC supports higher. You don’t get higher than 192/24 for the majority of any music on streaming services and they will play at what they have.

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Done with tweakings, I settled for this:


However I don’t hear any difference with this upsampling enabled.
The only thing I achieved is this screenshot that shows enhanced instead of lossless, and I got my white led turned on indicating DSD playback. Because I have choosen DSD 64 when I enabled sample rate conversion.
If I choose DSD128 or DSD256, hissing and distorted sounds appear. Why is that?
Is this setup the maximum possible quality that I can achieve from flacs and the Mojo 2?
This is using WASAPI, exclusive mode.
If I use the ASIO Chord 1.5 driver, I hear no fiffreence at all.
No matter what settings I change in Roon or with the Mojo 2 , like using te equalizer (UHD DSP control) to enable deeper bass by pressing the menu button first and then pressing the plus button until it’s red, or if I enable crossfeed, I hear no difference, even now when DSD is enabled.
How can this be?

Seriously, don’t do this. It’ll be converted back to PCM immediately.

Just feed it original PCM or native DSD (via DoP) and let the Chord do its magic.

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“Just feed it original PCM or native PCM (via DoP)”

How do I do that?

Both Max PCM rate and Max PCM rate x 2 result in sound “glitches” and distorted playback.

I meant native DSD (I edited the post), and PCM without any upsampling. Sometimes less is more. A Chord DAC works best with original source; you’ve paid for a discrete FPGA DAC with loads of taps so use it how it was intended. 16/44.1 is perfect with these DACs.

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Incidently, this is most likely an issue with your core or transport. From the signal path you posted earlier, processing speed was 1.3x, which is marginal performance for this kind of DSP.




I disabled upsampling now in Roon.
Is my device setup correct?

Thnaks. How do I correct this and what can I do about it? This is a Thinkpad X270 with Win 10. I have Ubuntu also on this machine via WSL2.

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Keep an eye on processing speed, and if it falls to 1.x, then you’re asking too much of the core.

The Mojo2 settings look fine.

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In the first page of the device setup please set MQA capabilities to ‘None’. Chord does not support MQA.

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Easy to see you issue here, your Roon core likely isn’t up to the job of upsampling to those resolutions. Look at your signal path you’re at 1.3x processing speed at DSD64 anything around that speed is in the danger areas anything drops lower you will get dropouts and hear what you’re hearing. Also when applying any DSP you should enable Roons headroom management as your also in danger of clipping samples especially if using eq of any kind.

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Chord user here.
What @Martin_Webster has said is true.
This is also what Rob Watts the designer of Chord DACs says.
For best sound quality from your Mojo2 don’t do any upsampling in Roon.
The Mojo2 is doing its own upsampling internally.
And if you’re converting to DSD it’s being converted back to PCM in the DAC which seems redundant to me.

If you prefer how it sounds with Roon DSP that’s fine.
Your music, your device, your ears.
But beware you’re going against the advice of the designer of your DAC.

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