Distortion & Crackling when playing MQA over Tidal and active DIRAC

Answered
Rolf Gehring
Sometimes when playing an MQA Track over Tidal when DIRAC Live is active the sound is distorted and annoying crackles are audible. Reminds a bit of clipping. This is not subtle and the track is not listenable anymore. When Dirac is turned off, this disappears. It reappears when it is turned on again. It does not happen every time, but it can happen for the same song or not. Sometimes it disappears when skipping to a different song and back, sometimes not. I had it resolved by switching the unit off, once also by switching inputs and going back. I thought it had disappeared since it did not happen for a while now, but now it is back with full force. I try to avoid listening to MQA as much as possible. But some songs are only available in MQA. This is extremely annoying and should really not happen for a high end device. This is happening on my NAD C399.
1

Comments

8 comments

Date Votes
  • Official comment
    Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Please open the BluOS App and under Settings, About, ensure you are on BluOS 4.4.12 on your NAD C399 to resolve a recent DIRAC issue. If you are and continue to hear issues, please select Settings, Send Support Request and fill out the online form so we can get a copy of the log file and take a closer look.

    * on The BluOS App for Windows or macOS, About and Send Support Request are both under Help, not Settings

  • Brian
    Lossless

    DIRAC had a problem with 88.2 kHz sample rates which had been well documented, I suspect the tracks causing distortion are being unfolded to that rate. 

    0
  • Rolf Gehring

    Not sure what the rate is, but it it is not reliable with one song or the other. It happens with the same song, then it work with that exact song, next time its a different song that worked before.

    0
  • Brian
    Lossless

    If that's the case then best to contact Bluesound support directly either through the app or by clicking the Support button at the bottom of this screen.

    0
  • Ted Cruz

    I just got my NAD C399 back from repair and I was hoping that the repair would also address the audio distortion that I was hearing while playing Tidal MQA tracks. Frustrating to see that the audio distortion is still there and just like Rolf's experience, the audio distortion comes and goes and doesn't stick to a particular track. I'll have to try disabling DIRAC but that's a terrible work-around. 

    0
  • Rolf Gehring

    Had the issue just now with two consecutive tracks. I went back and forth with the track, didn’t help. I switched to a different input, then back to BluOS, problem still persisted, I then played another Track without MQA and went back to the problematic ones. Problem was gone. It is really annoying. Especially when listening to playlists with mixed qualities.

    0
  • Mark Gerlach
    • Edited

    Same Problem with BluOS 4.4.12 on my NAD C389 and Dirac.

    0
  • Rolf Gehring

    Yes. In the meantime this issue also happens with non mqa streams from quboz. All of them with the sample rate of 88.2 kHz as Brian reported above.

    It happens only sometimes, but when it does it is really ugly.

    0

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