bhobba saidwijber saidCould this be a question of misunderstanding? As far as I know MQA delivers 24/44.1 up to (limited in case of the DS/Bridge) 24/192. When playing the ‘Tidal Masters ; New Arrivals’ the resolution varies per track from 24/44.1 up to 24/192. My thought is that whenever both mconnect and the DS display provides the MQA-signs it is a confirmation that what we hear is MQA for sure…
Interesting idea ie it really is MQA 44.1 or 48 24 bits - but I have never heard of that - its 88.1, 96, etc up to 384 - not 48 or 44.1
What do others get when they try the first 2 in the masters section ie 4:44, and Lemonade - they didn’t decode fully for me. I think Banwagonesque works but 11:11 doesn’t.
If someone can give me some feedback that will be great and help in narrowing down what to do next ie should we connect Tidal directly to the DS via its app and see what happens.
Thanks
Bill
</blockquote>Does it show as MQA or MQA. on the Display? If not the bridge does not think it is MQA.
Dennis
Over here both mconnect Control HD and DS display shown as MQA
Dennis Kerrisk saidDoes it show as MQA or MQA. on the Display? If not the bridge does not think it is MQA.
Hi Dennis
It says MQA 44.1 or 48 24 on the android or Ipad. It says 44.1 or 48 24 of the DS display - but I didn’t notice if it said MQA in front of it.
Will need to wait until I visit my dealer next to check that out. I could ask him to try it but he is a bit computer phobic which is somewhat of a laugh because he uses Clio to design his speakers and is a whiz at it - interesting.
Thanks
Bill
Does JRiver ‘handle’ MQA? I’m thinking not . . . I downloaded an MQA file and tried to play it via my DS(sr)/BridgeII/JRiver setup, but the file was not recognized as an MQA file. I guess I was thinking that I would only need to download the MConnect app if I was going to stream via Tidal. Do I, in fact, need to install the MConnect app in order to play MQA files from my hard drive via JRiver?
bhobba said
Interesting idea ie it really is MQA 44.1 or 48 24 bits - but I have never heard of that - its 88.1, 96, etc up to 384 - not 48 or 44.1 What do others get when they try the first 2 in the masters section ie 4:44, and Lemonade - they didn't decode fully for me. I think Banwagonesque works but 11:11 doesn't.I assume your dealer could try with another mqa-dac like Mytek or Meridian Explorer 2 ?!If someone can give me some feedback that will be great and help in narrowing down what to do next ie should we connect Tidal directly to the DS via its app and see what happens.
Thanks
Bill
Someone on this forum??
timequest saidDoes JRiver ‘handle’ MQA? I’m thinking not . . . I downloaded an MQA file and tried to play it via my DS(sr)/BridgeII/JRiver setup, but the file was not recognized as an MQA file. I guess I was thinking that I would only need to download the MConnect app if I was going to stream via Tidal. Do I, in fact, need to install the MConnect app in order to play MQA files from my hard drive via JRiver?
Yes it does, if you have it set up to pass audio unchanged to the bridge, then the bridge will decode it. I have my office set up that way. It took a little experimenting with jRiver settings to get it to work.
Dennis
Dennis Kerrisk saidYes it does, if you have it set up to pass audio unchanged to the bridge, then the bridge will decode it. I have my office set up that way. It took a little experimenting with jRiver settings to get it to work.
Dennis
Thanks Denise. Here’s a link to a free MQA download provided by David Elias (the file I tried to play - it did play by the way, it was not, however, displayed on the DS as MQA): http://bandcamp.com/download?from=email&id=3757871253&payment_id=1955661118&sig=9f78a5a8618cea1edc09bdcfe25f0b54&type=track
When I went to this link to download the MQA file, I was prompted to select the format (FLAC, WAV, etc.) I chose WAV. Does that matter at all?
timequest saidThanks Denise. Here’s a link to a free MQA download provided by David Elias (the file I tried to play - it did play by the way, it was not, however, displayed on the DS as MQA): http://bandcamp.com/download?from=email&id=3757871253&payment_id=1955661118&sig=9f78a5a8618cea1edc09bdcfe25f0b54&type=track
When I went to this link to download the MQA file, I was prompted to select the format (FLAC, WAV, etc.) I chose WAV. Does that matter at all?
That is the file type to download it in. I am downloading it now and will test it here.
Dennis
It is playing as a 44.1 wav file for me. I have several other files that play as MQA though so I know my setup is correct.
Dennis
I tried some of the 2L MQA sample files in JRiver (latest stable Mac version) and could not get them to play as MQA. I thought I had turned off all DSP functions and the path showed no DSP was being used and at least some of the BitPerfect test files worked, but not all. DSD files played fine. When I switched to minimserver and Mcontrol they did play as MQA (at least when I didn’t get the streaming error others have mentioned). I used to use JRiver regularly and it worked well, until a few months ago when I started having a variety of problems. I gave up and switched to Roon for the most part. I haven’t tried Tidal yet.
Dennis Kerrisk saidIt is playing as a 44.1 wav file for me. I have several other files that play as MQA though so I know my setup is correct.
Dennis
Thanks Denise. Good to know. I wonder if Dave Elias realizes that this supposedly MQA formatted file doesn’t translate . . .
I think Paul & Co. will ban you any minute now if you keep calling Dennis, “Denise” 
With respect to some MQA files showing as only 44.1 or 48, I seem to recall reading something to the effect that if the “Master” file is only 44.1 or 48 that is what the MQA file will play at. In other words they don’t employ upsampling (at least not for those files). Not sure if there is much of an advantage to MQA then, other than the “de-blurring” effect. Perhaps some of the smarter folks will be able to confirm this.
That’s exactly what I thought to remember. I compared a couple of tracks from the ‘Tidal masters ; New arrivals’ to what Qobuz delivers in streaming hires. So far I only found two tracks that differ;
Ji Young Lim (tidal 24/192 ; qobuz 24/96) and Prince & the Revolution (tidal 24/192 ; qobuz 24/96)
All tracks below are identical in resolution in both Tidal MQA and Qobuz hires;
Prism Tats (24/44) ; Straight No Chaser (24/44) ; Coldplay (24/96) ; Shabazz Palaces (24/44) ; Ritual (24/48) ; Grace Gold (24/96) ; Offa Rex (24/88) ; Jeff Tweedy (24/44) ; Jaymes Young (24/44) ; 311 (24/44) ; Donald Fagen (24/48) ; Fleet Foxes (24/96) ; Portugal.The Man (24/48) ; Steve Earl (24/96)
I am convinced these agreements not to be coincidental though that we really get the full unfolding in MQA (up to 24/192).
wijber saidI assume your dealer could try with another mqa-dac like Mytek or Meridian Explorer 2 ?!
Someone on this forum??
I have a Meridian Explorer but it just says - MQA with a blue light - not the actual frequency. The PS Audio is the only MQA DAC he carries.
Indeed - I have mentioned a couple of titles it doesn’t work on - surely someone else can play them and see what frequency it says. Anyone.
Wont be heading to my dealer until probably next week to check if it says MQA on the DAC.
Thanks
Bill
Hi All
Further update.
It occurred to me I could download the Tidal app on my notebook.
Ok did that. Then connected it to to my DS.
Everything worked perfectly. All these previous ones that didn’t work now work perfectly ie are all decoded in the Tidal app to 88.1 or 96.
This is truly weird.
I will take my notebook down to my dealers and see if it is reproduced there.
If so then there is something wrong either with the Bridge MQA or Mconnect Control or both. Should that be the case, since I purchased the Bridge to do MQA it will need to be returned to PS Audio an/or Magenta to sort out. As it stands now its pretty useless - but wont do anything until further investigation.
Thanks
Bill
bhobba saidHi All
Further update.
It occurred to me I could download the Tidal app on my notebook.
Ok did that. Then connected it to to my DS.
Everything worked perfectly. All these previous ones that didn’t work now work perfectly ie are all decoded in the Tidal app to 88.1 or 96.
This is truly weird.
I will take my notebook down to my dealers and see if it is reproduced there.
If so then there is something wrong either with the Bridge MQA or Mconnect Control or both. Should that be the case, since I purchased the Bridge to do MQA it will need to be returned to PS Audio an/or Magenta to sort out. As it stands now its pretty useless - but wont do anything until further investigation.
Thanks
Bill
If there were network issues that caused the bridge to miss the MQA flags, they would not unfold, but they would also not say MQA on the bridge.
Dennis
Found this on the absolute sound;
…“In practice, MQA is delivered to listeners as a conventional lossless file, such as FLAC or Apple Lossless at 44kHz or 48kHz at 24 bits. If you play the file though a DAC without an MQA decoder, you’ll hear better-than-CD sound quality. If you play the file through a DAC with MQA decoding, you’ll hear the sound in the studio’s original bit rate, which could be anything from 44.1kHz to 384kHz (or higher), provided that your DAC can handle the studio’s sample frequency.”…
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/beyond-high-resolution/
…still not fully convinced the Bridge II completely unfolds MQA (up to 24/192) whenever the MQA lights are glowing but for now give it the benefit of doubt until proven otherwise.
If there were network issues that caused the bridge to miss the MQA flags, they would not unfold, but they would also not say MQA on the bridge.Dennis
Hi Dennis
Will of course check the MQA light on the DAC.
But gee if that’s the issue something is a bit fishy - working when I connect through my notebook ie it detects the MQA flags on the notwork anf the Bridge doesn’t.
Still stuff to be done before we get to that stage though.
Thanks
Bill
I’m not a bridge user and I don’t know the in’s and out’s of all of the options that people might use to drive it, but I wonder if there are some paths to the bridge that have volume control, replay gain, or other DSP in them that people aren’t used to checking? (I know there are in JRiver, but I don’t know if people use JRiver for MQA sources.) If so that would (presumably) destroy the MQA flags and cause anything downstream to not recognize the MQAness. (Or if things don’t need to be bit perfect for MQA to work there’s still probably some level of volume or processing that would at least cause things to be flaky.) If MQA detection is flaky, one might see if the 192k/sec bit perfect test works thru the same software.