MQA for Bridge using Roon

Ask no question, it’s like in Harry Potter, do not pronounce this question

And we’re here! Huzzah! Snow day in the deep south and special present to go with it! Listening now to MQA of Chris Thile’s just-released Thanks For Listening in full unfold on my PWDII. Sounds amazing, and I can’t wait to dive deeper after nightfall and things are quiet.

One curiosity: MQA files coming through Roon as 24/96 show up on the PWD display as 24/96 MQA but files that Roon identifies as 24/192 show up on the PWD display as 16/192 MQA. Anyone else see this?

Paul and team: Thank you. Thank you from a happy and impressed customer.

I am as well, sorry I have posted in this chat, same sort of thing for me:

http://www.psaudio.com/forum/directstream-all-about-it/tidal-roon-mqa-to-dsd-question/

cymbop said

One curiosity: MQA files coming through Roon as 24/96 show up on the PWD display as 24/96 MQA but files that Roon identifies as 24/192 show up on the PWD display as 16/192 MQA. Anyone else see this?

Updated the bridge on my DSJ and MQA via Roon now unfolding. However, like you I tried a couple of 24/192 files and they unfolded as 16/192.

FWIW, Spotify connect now finds the Bridge 2 connection and playback works fine too - think Spotify sounds better than via usb too. Nice.

I also get 16 bits i.o. 24 bits on the display in some cases, and sometimes the display toggles between 16 and 24.

Strange, but the sound is still awesome!

On DSJr., I can seamlessly move between MQA (also seeing 16/192 instead of 24/192) via Roon and Spotify Connect using the app on my iPad thanks to this bridge update!! Seriously, as much as I LOVE great sound, I love EVEN MORE making it easier for the user to enjoy the experience and as a young 30 year old bunk using exclusively streaming services and a music server, this is just wonderful.

I also am getting 16 bit depth reported on the DS display for MQA 24/96 and 24/192 content, sent to the Bridge 2 by Roon.

Bridge 2 version is 3.4.5

Yup - getting 16 also - very weird - hopefully an easy fix

Hi, I am getting 16-bit on the DS display for TIDAL MQA using the mConnect Android app (no Roon here):

MQA16-192-1.jpg

It wouldn’t surprise me if the DS/DSJ is reporting the correct bit rate for 192K material. I mean it’s not really possible for MQA to provide true (original) 24 bit depth to high sample rate recordings as it’s using lower bits to fold the HF information. Though I probably would have expected them to pad out the bits to 24 to give the illusion of true 24 bit. Maybe this is a limitation of the Bridge 2 hardware(?)

Will it sound better if the display reports 24/192(?) - though we know this can’t be the original 24/192?

There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors going on with MQA.

Sitting listening to a Tidal MQA track via Roon and the Bridge II with 192k on the display and a big smile on my face laugh

I have the same 16 bit (occasionally flickering to 24) issue others reported but nonetheless you guys rock PS Audio!

My only dilemma is I’m still getting to know my new server so I’m reluctant to upgrade the DS itself from Huron until I’m comfortable with the SQ from the server. A nice dilemma to have tho cool

Paul / team - new functionality for the BII and a new firmware upgrade for an already amazing DAC. All for free. Kudos guys. Keep up the great work! dancing-009_gif

Cheers,

Alan

I’ll share the following in case it helps anyone that sees similar.

I noticed after the firmware update that despite MQA playing and sounding wonderful most album art was not loading and the display on the DS that shows how long the current track has to play was not displaying correctly.

Powered the DS down with the button at the back and when I put it back on both issues were resolved.

I am showing 24bits on MQA files via Roon since I disabled Roon volume control- worth a try. Had the 16/24 going back and forth before. Red Cloud is definitely awesome- great job!

Never mind- Just saw it the 16/24 flipping back and forth again- was with a 24/192 MQA 5.1 downmix- it seems correct that when Roon does any signal processing (volume,downmixing to 2.0) that it happens- still sounds great! Just dim the display and enjoy.

I can confirm that the 16 problem is happening for me on BOTH Roon and mConnect - this had never happened before on mConnect.

So it seems, in my unprofessional opinion, that this isn’t a Roon problem.

I also think that this is something that needs to be fixed. I’m not freaking out about it, but the suggestion of dimming the LCD doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Evidently humor has been sucked from the world- of course there is an issue if Roon is reporting 24 bit output and the Bridge says it is 16. I’m sure our fine folks at PS Audio will straighten it out as soon as they can :wink:

OK…So most of my MQA content is also reporting 16 bits instead of 24 bit indicated on the Roon OR MControlHD side, HOWEVER…

I discovered that Art Blakey “A Night At Brirdland Vol 1” at 24/96 is coming across to the DS display as 24/96 !!

Really bizarre that this specific title is reporting 24 bit.

The FPGA has never lied about the number of bits it received as far as I know.

You can get 24bits displayed if you do ANY non-unity volume or other processing. (I don’t know if these are options in Roon with MQA…)

There’s certainly the possibility that MQA didn’t notice that they weren’t getting the correct bits with Roon and or the module in the Bridge, but I don’t think that’s likely.

I suspect that nothing is wrong anywhere. We’re just learning more about MQA than we might want to know :slight_smile:

If that’s the case the only “fix” would be for something somewhere to lie (or modify the lowest bit to a 1 for MQA.)

I’m certainly not claiming to know what the problem is - but I have a pretty good idea what it’s not.

Thanks Ted…Well I certainly want the truth on the screen. Following a conversion to PCM, I would guess that Roon is actually reporting the file content it is sending after first unfold (24/48), and then what metadata would be reporting as the full unfold.

Then I’m guessing Bridge receives PCM as 24/48 that Roon reported, and proceeds with the next unfold:

  1. Reporting what it intends to do based on what it is told by Roon, or based on MQA spec metadata (wouldn’t appear to be)

OR

  1. the actual content according to information passed back from the MQA full unfold routine, or reporting bit depth of file content derived from the unfolded content type itself.

I don’t think you would ever succumb to reporting whatever is in the metadata. I would hope that we are just seeing the truth, and that a better understanding of MQA is forthcoming :slight_smile:

Yep, since the FPGA never sees metadata it just reports what it receives. It is the case that the Bridge input is coded separately on the control/display processor, but it’s faithfully reported the numbers it received from the FPGA in the past.