MQA support is minimal. It provides more control for the Record companies as far as copy protection at the expense of compromising sound quality. Most DAC manufactures do not want to relegate control of the sound of their DACS to another company. This is the very reason PS Audio let it be used via the bridge only. It would prevent us from hearing all the work Ted does to improve the performance of the DAC.
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Please confirm for me. the MQA signal is passed by the bridge to the
DAC and thereby benefiting from Ted’s work. (God bless him).
Yes, the unfold is done on the bridge card but the MQA has no control over the DAC.
I don’t know about the “control” for the record companies but it seems to be adopted by most of the DAC/Streamers companies including PSA. If PSA having MQA in the bridge vs. the DAC makes a difference to you that is great. All I know is I can get MQA support from PSA. When I press play and I’m listening to MQA I personally could care less if the MQA unfolding is happening on the bridge or DAC. I just want to listen to music.
Esoteric/TEAC
Denon
Panasonic/Technics
Sony
Pioneer
There may be others.
MQA was developed specifically for streaming. That is why it is perfect that PSA utilized it via the Bridge. However the Bridge only unfolds one layer of MQA. To unfold fully it would have to be done within the DAC too. I am glad that PSA decided to limit the MQA capability to the bridge as if they had gone with full implementation it would have interfered with the performance of the DAC. I am not a streamer at all. That is why I don’t have a bridge. I want to enjoy fully the performance that Ted provides while playing CD’s and SACD’s on my DMP and Music stored on a hard drive. They made the right decision to protect the performance of the DAC while still providing some level of support for MQA for those who do use streaming services.
So If one wants full MQA they need to purchase a DAC from a different company? Maybe that is why some people on this forum say they don’t like MQA. They haven’t heard it done fully with their PSA gear.
So when PSA advertise Full MQA it really isn’t? Are you sure about this?
I don’t think this is correct. I was of the understanding that the Bridge does both unfolding and rendering.
I know in Roon I have my settings set to decoding and rendering. I assumed it meant the Bridge was doing Full MQA as stated on PSA’s site.
I learned about the MQA operation and the Directstream DAC on the forum. Paul had mentioned the reasons why they chose to utilize it only on the Bridge. I wish I could point you toward the posting but I do not remember in what thread or when it was put up. I am sure Ted or Paul will chime in to clarify the situation.
The full unfold requires MQA to control the operation of the DAC. Of that I am sure.
There are two levels of unfolding and than rendering. Yes the Bridge unfolds to layer 1 and renders.
Hopefully Ted/Paul will chime in and give us the rundown on what is required to have Full MQA however many layers it is. I personally want to hear everything MQA has to offer.
My understanding is:
So on the product page for the bridge II it states full unfold of MQA
and if you use something like Roon to play Tidal masters, Roon tells you what the full unfold will be and then if you have the settings for bridge set with MQA set to Decoder and Renderer it does the full unfold
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Yes that is what I have settings and all.
If you play something like Lorde Pure Heroin and find her MQA album (they have 2 version one MQA and one non) it unfolds to 192K as the screen shots in my post. If you have the setting set right when you click on the light that shows details it will show the same as my last screenshot. Which is the full unfold.
Also you can see the MQA on the DS Senior screen I am sure there is a flag on the junior too
MSB and several other “major players” in the DAC market are doing the same thing as Conversdigital is doing with the Bridge card in that full MQA is being done in the plug-in module as that was the only way the MQA people to get the Big Boys in the DAC market to play along. There was no way they were going to give Bob Stuart access to their DAC technology. Auralic proved as far back as CES 2016 that it could all be done in the software domain.
To me doing MQA via a plug in module like MSB, PSA, etc. is OK. Doing it without a plug in module like dCS is good also. For me it doesn’t matter. I’m more interested in finding out if PSA is doing Full MQA or only a subset. I was always under the impression that it is Full MQA and not just layer 1.
Right, which as the bridge II spec and the screenshots show it does the full unfold not just 1st unfold
This is a great article
Guys, the DirectStream DAC equipped with the Bridge II card fully unfolds MQA. Regardless of how you feel about MQA, if you have a Bridge II card in your DirectStream then you are getting the real deal, fully unfolded MQA.
If you don’t have the Bridge II card in your DirectStream, and you are streaming MQA, you will not be experiencing the last unfold which must be hardware-based and licensed (i.e. Bridge II).
And to be clear, PSA has directly or indirectly adopted MQA (via the Bridge II) and has therefore advertised and used MQA as a sales incentive. I have read posts authored by @Paul as of recent where he expresses his opinion about MQA, so I believe now that he has experienced it through his products, his opinion has evolved. At least that is what I want to believe otherwise he would be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.