So I had missed all the months of Huron and MQA announcements and just updated the bridge and my DS and can see the MQA sign when streaming MQA masters from Tidal. Amazing progress and makes me happy I decided to invest in the DS and psaudio, not because of MQA but because psaudio keeps innovating.
So I ve had MQA files sitting on my qNAp NAS for a while because I had first tried out an Auralic then the MYTEk broolklyn before settling on the DS. Those dacs didn’t have any problems playing the files but i used auralics lightning app. When I try and play an MQA file on the DS all I get is noise. I’m using a generic iOS dlna app with the source set to my NAS library and the bridge 2 as the destination. The MQA files appear to be encoded using flac.
Assuming you are using Mcontrol app for iOS to stream MQA from Tidal, can’t you just point it at your QNAP NAS and play the MQA files from there? Mcontrol sees all of the music servers on my network but I don’t have any MQA material on them, so I haven’t tried it. I believe once PSA delivers the Roon/MQA update for the Bridge, you can use Roon to stream MQA from your NAS, as well.
Assuming you are using Mcontrol app for iOS to stream MQA from Tidal, can’t you just point it at your QNAP NAS and play the MQA files from there? Mcontrol sees all of the music servers on my network but I don’t have any MQA material on them, so I haven’t tried it. I believe once PSA delivers the Roon/MQA update for the Bridge, you can use Roon to stream MQA from your NAS, as well.
Yes, any dlna enabled iOS app including mcontrol should have the same behavior ( you’re right though that using mcontrol is easier since I can also stream the masters ). I realized that I was somehow sending an unsupported file which was causing the noise. Some of the other MQA files I have do work and the MQA sign shows up on the DS. Thanks!
(Looking to clarify confirm what you and others are saying in this thread…) So, one can play MQA files from an iMac using JRiver Media Center? I have not yet upgraded to Bridge II and I currently play most of my music via Wi-Fi from my iMac (w/JRiver MC) through a router and switch into my DS DAC using JRemote. When I update my PS Audio hardware and software, will my system accommodate MQA files?
(Looking to clarify confirm what you and others are saying in this thread…) So, one can play MQA files from an iMac using JRiver Media Center? I have not yet upgraded to Bridge II and I currently play most of my music via Wi-Fi from my iMac (w/JRiver MC) through a router and switch into my DS DAC using JRemote. When I update my PS Audio hardware and software, will my system accommodate MQA files?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Scott
To JRiver a MQA file is just a flac file, it doesn’t know the difference between MQA and a regular flac file. JRMC will not do any unfolding but as long as you don’t use DSP and keep the volume at 100%, JRiver should pass the file undisturbed to the DS for unfolding. You will have to determine with your own ears if MQA files sound better than their hi-res equivalents. In my experience and in my system, they don’t, but there is another thread on this forum for that discussion.
After bridge upgrade to 3.3.3 i have played a bit with locally stored MQA files and found that when I had transcoding of flac to wav enabled in minimserver the song played, but was choppy.
Disabling flac to wav transcoding in minimserver allowed me to listen to MQA in the following setup:
minimserver -> bubbleupnpserver creating OpenHome renderer proxy for Bridge2 -> Linn Kazoo controller app.
However this don’t work for TIDAL, only for locally stored files - TIDAL somehow always plays FLAC 16@44 . Not sure if this is problem of Linn Kazoo, or bubbleupnpserver.
I know this is not supported config (I can’t use mConnect as my DAC is on other NW segment than iPad controller so I’m using bubbleupnp server as kind of proxy which has access to both segments of LAN) - just wanted to share some experience…
Go into the Bubble UPNP server web set up page, and you will see that there are only two options for Tidal: 16/44 or a lower rate MP3.
that’s correct, i wast just hoping that as the latest release of bubbleupnpserver was done before MQA got available on Tidal so I hoped that it will actually mean 16@44 and UP
Anyways last night i have installed SMCPROXY to forward multicast requests from iPad controlled to Bridge2 LAN and vice-versa. I can now use mConnect to play via bridge2 - including TIDAL MQA!
I had no time yet to listen for SQ, i just confirmed it works (DS shows MQA on display).
Hopefully bubbleupnp will support TIDAL MQA soon so i can get rid of the SMC proxy soon - or even better situation will be once Bridge2 will work with Roon and MQA as i love the Roon interface (I just hope the Roon SQ should get on par with UPnP soon…)
