Why Roon choose to downgrade MQA192kHz to MQA96kHz before upgrade to DSD256?

I am using a Linux computer to run Roon and connected to Goldmund 20H NextGEN DAC by USB.

As shown by the picture, I am wondering why Roon choose to downgrade MQA192kHz to MQA96kHz before upgrade to DSD256?

Thank you!

Roon hasn’t “downgraded” the file, it simply hasn’t performed the decode, i.e. the file is untouched.

Hi @Martin_Webster, looking at the signal path it looks to me like Roon has authenticated MQA and then decoded it to 96KHz (the first unfold) … before performing the conversation of that 96KHz signal to DSD … all looks good to me.

Hi @YONGSHENG_GUO,

Roon has decoded the MQA signal to 96Khz … (Sometimes referred to as the first fold) … so that looks good to me.

Note only a DAC that supports MQA rendering can perform the second “unfold” to 192KHz … I don’t think the Goldmund 20H NextGEN DAC supports MQA.

However, even if it did … in this case that would still not be possible as you have Roon setup to perform a PCM to DSD conversion, hence the signal is no longer MQA renderable.

Is it possible that the roon setup does the full decoding of MQA Steam, then convert the output PCM to DSD Stream?

Yes, I put it wrongly.

Roon has done the MQA decoding. Roon took the 48Khz file and decoded it to 96Khz. As has been stated, that is the MQA “first unfold.” That is the extent of what a software MQA decode can do. If you had an MQA DAC, the DAC could do the MQA rendering to the full extent possible. However, you don’t have an MQA DAC. Next you had Roon convert the 96Khz file to a DSD256 file.

1 Like

I see! Thank you

1 Like