MQA external Dac
Answered
My DAC plays MQA if I have ‚mqa external dac‘ active
So I use roon. If I have a file from Tidal that is only avaiable in MQA it wont play.
I figured out that i can trick it into playing it anyhow: 1) i ‚output fix‘ 2) play on roon 3) be really fast to change it in the blueOs app back to ‚no outputfix‘ (cause its at 100% volume) and then i can listen to the whole album, and with volume control
So my question: is there a permanent way to make this work without this trick?
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Official comment
Hi JP
That is a question for ROON Labs. Please contact them for questions about their software and settings.
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No its not? I do this in blueos, under ‚player‘.
If its on ‚mqa external dac‘ what i only can activate when i do ‚output level fixey‘ only then, it plays like a charm.That behavior is the same if i use roon or music (tidal) from blueos app.
Cant you have this active:
Mqa external dac -
Whilst not having output fix on?0 -
MQA is going soon on Tidal.
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Hi Rays Jazz - please stop posting this it is factually inaccurate.
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If its on ‚mqa external dac‘ what i only can activate when i do ‚output level fixey‘ only then, it plays like a charm.
This is by design - when using an external MQA DAC your NODE output must be fixed otherwise you will not receive full MQA playback.
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Tony, where is your evidence?
Tidal are replacing MQA with FLAC, they have not completed it yet.
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Thank you Tony.
So I keep using the workaround (that is changing it back in blueOS App, just after it starts playing).
That's might a design idea for your product? a "use node as pre-Amp" so one would not have to do that.
it makes sense if you use a DAC and a preamp, for when you use the Node as your preamp, what I think is the true power of these devices, it makes less sense, as you could off-course use the volume control of the pre-AMP.
Thank again Tony.
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Just out of curiosity Rays Jazz - what do you mean by that?
Master will remain, but their prefered is FLAC High Res (COO said this, according to and if you want trust Reddit as a source). I read those articles as well, but cant see any proof - as all FLAC 24bits still come with MQA annex indicating the kHz, so MQA still somewhat involved / what as well is evident with my original topic of this threat.
Regardless - that newer files "FLAC 48khz 24bits (if played over roon) always mentions MQA 192 or 96 or 48 in the file name (i.e. PF Dark Side of the Moon = FLAC 48kHz 24bit, MQA 192kHz) as roon lets you select from all available versions. I can then select in roon settings "Flac over everything else, and it wont play if there is another version in FLAC 16bit" / but that is limited to FLAC 16bit. Anything more, wont play on my DAC without FIXED OUTPUT LEVEL / MQA EXTERNAL DAC setting in Blue OS App.
What I recognice is, that all "that is above FLAC 16bit" - regardless always has a MQA mentioning after and wont play without MQA Authentication / full decoder. These file are then called by Tidal FLAC 48kHz 24bit, MQA 192kHz - although flac, it wont play wihtout MQA on your high res player.
That confused me for a while, but before I haven't used a external dac in my livingroom setup, it never bothered me.
So why would you have FLAC and MQA mentioned in the same file name, do you know Jazz? As to the evidence, an 6mio songs, on high res flac, I cant see evidence of that in Tidal (and they say they implementing since April and over 6mio songs - all super popular and high end songs, do show as FLAC 48khz 24bit // but they still have MQA involved in one or the other way, you can see that in the player path, that will use MQA codec to play it. I'm really confused with this.
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I don't understand some of this. You say MQA won't play unless you have MQA enabled DAC? I don't use Tidal at the moment but I have in the past and MQA played on my non MQA enabled DAC using BluOs, never had any problems but I have never used Roon, so that maybe your issue. Have heard that Tidal have incorrectly labelled some music. A lot of the cd level was labelled MQA even though that was only on the Masters. MQA should play on non MQA equipment, it just does not have the MQA element unfolded. Yours is the first case I've heard of it not playing. If it is incorrect labelling that could affect the playback issues.
If what say is true that the Flac incorporates MQA, then that does not make much sense and won't please many people, there is quite a strong anti-MQA element on HiFi forums. So the reports that I'm hearing that MQA is being replaced by Flac are incorrect? And the Flac is MQA in disguise anyway?
When you select a song, does it have Master or Max on it? I have read an article that says you can't tell if is MQA or Flac, unless your DAC tells you.
Flac is lossless, MQA is not but the files are smaller.
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Hi Rays Jazz
Let's go to the source - here' is Bob Stuart explaining how MQA works; https://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/science-mqa/mqa-playback/#
This should explain it to you and fill in your blanks...
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I have read that before. Many think it is marketing rubbish. They have never produced any evidence to support their claims. Many MQA records never went back to the source. Ask Neil Young about MQA.
Tests have been dine on MQA and found it is lossy.0 -
Thank you Jazz for your input.
I use a really old, but wonderfull DAC from counterpoint so it might be technical in nature as well.
I have the same behavior if i use blueos, music / and play from tidal directly. Any file higher then flac 16bit wont play without fixed output level /
External dac setting in blueos. As said, once it starts playing and i change back,
It will play the entire album.
Thats why I initially asked to have mqa external dac active without output level fixed (but thats not intended by design according to Tony, and thats fine).
I might look after a preamp then what would fix my issue, or try the bw formation
- that has a digital out as well. My matrix has no digital out.To your argument, i cant say,
I just present my evidence and if labeled wrong by tidal it still doesent explain why roon runs it through a mqa decoder.
Roon is just awesome btw,
If you love music then look into their service.0 -
And jazz, I’m afraid i side with Tony on this (mqa) one.
MQA is missoderstood. And in my opinion its all subjective. Like before with a reccord or a cd, some i like it better as mqa some i do like the flac version better.
Audiophiles/ subjective/ in the end the ear decides - and it all comes back to the quality of the original recording.Flac or mqa this that… your hart & ear will decide
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MQA is a controversial subject. I'm not really interested in it, I don't use Tidal. I prefer Qobuz. Roon I'm not interested in either, won't do anything for me and it is too expensive.
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From what I understand from Tidal, if there are 2 versions of a song or album on Tidal, MQA and Flac, if that is selected then the Flac version will play. There does not seem to be a way to play the MQA version anymore. So as more Flac music is added then MQA will be replaced. Unless this has changed in the last 3 months.
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Roon has just been acquired by Harman. There is speculation today that Harman could be taken over, this is fresh news.
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Hey Jazz
Thanks for the conversation btw.
From the new album releases , on tidal,
You can clearly see that they come
With flac 16 bit, and flac 24 mqa versions (still cant verify what this means, but many new albums still come in more versions)
Further your terminology is not preceise -
What is flac? There is several versions, flac 16 flac 24, all of them in 48 96 ++ hZ. Where as atill today, in the file name of the flac 24bit there is a MQA mentioned. (Would love to show you, but i can’t print screenshots here)
Thanks on the info of Harman, that was new to me.
Will research on that.
Have a good one0 -
Does that not mean it could be either? Ie 24 bit Flac or MQA. If it has both then it will play the Flac version, this is what Tidal have been telling people.
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I'm currently researching this question. if you would use Tidal or have Roon you could follow my discussion, must be very confusing without seeing it the same way as I do, as I can see it in the signal path in Roon.
I'll come back if I find something, in the end it's indeed very confusing, but if above 48 kHz it seems still to use MQA in a way to up or downsample it.
Forget about it Jazz, its a Roon thing I guess.
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