We have it working after a few missteps which are now sorted out. We wanted to add a few more goodies into the package when we do the next release and those are proving to be a bit more time consuming (licensing and trying to get our costs of acquiring them lower) than we had hoped. I don’t have a fixed time frame but soon.
badbeef saidNo it doesn't - which only adds to the murkiness of the whole process.…comparing the MQA and non-MQA files on Tidal means or proves something about MQA one way OR the other. It doesn’t.
My issue with MQA is that I’m not hearing anything to make me think its clearly superior to 16/44 - in fact mostly quite the opposite. Maybe Roon to Bridge II will offer better SQ (than using mConnect)?
I’m anxious for the Tidal MQA -> Roon -> Bridge II -> DSJr update because so far I have found lots of things to like about some of the MQA recordings. Unfortunately, and I really have little idea as to what part of what I’m doing now is responsible (MConnect to stream Tidal through Bridge II), but it’s unreliable as hell. Breakups, delays, starts and stops, just plain stops, skipping tracks, etc.
While Roon is widely considered to be Nirvana, I’m okay with the MConnect UI on my iPhone or iPad. If it worked reliably, I wouldn’t even care about Roon as my file library is very small (I haven’t bothered to rip all of my CDs because of Tidal). I’m hoping that Roon will improve on the reliability during my free evaluation period, which I will start after the Bridge II update is available and installed.
Unscientific, completely subjective example of why I am enjoying MQA:
I stopped at a local high-end dealer and asked one of the salesmen, whom I’ve known for years, to convince me in 20 minutes of the viability/superiority of vinyl over modern digital. We compared “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “This Song has no Title”. The media were a British pressing of the LP, and the SACD. (Yes, they may have been made from different masters.) The hardware was “extremely respectable”. I can’t remember the TT, but total cost was probably around $8K. The digital was Chord Dave from the Chord transport. Amplification was Bel Canto Black Series, and speakers were Magneplanar 3.7i. Cabling was all Transparent and all together may have exceeded the cost of the rest of it!
The presentations were significantly different with the LP holding an edge on smoothness, or lack of roughness (your pick), and the SACD on detail, which wasn’t even close. I heard things on the SACD that were clearly missing/masked on the LP. If I had to pick, I would choose the SACD and tolerate the digital edginess for the sake of detail.
When I got home, I tried a comparison between the SACD, which I also have, and Tidal MQA. My system details are below; very different from what I heard at the dealer, but “my reference”.
The SACD though the Oppo sounded similar to what I heard at the dealer. Detailed and spacious, but edgy. I was not prepared for what I heard from Tidal MQA. More detail than any of the other presentations, yet the spaciousness and the blackness of the background was far superior. As to smooth vs. edgy, it was neither. It simply sounded more “real”. I have experience similar results with other material.
Two things: This post started on topic, so forgive me if I got carried away. Excitement and enthusiasm are part of our pursuit. I would also like to reiterate: Unscientific and Subjective.
Happy listening!
I would like to comment my own experience MQA quality and technology briefly. I have a second system where I use Audirvana connected to Tidal to decode MQA files. It is a system I previously used in my recording studio. VTL pre -> Bryston power amp -> Harbeth speakers. I am using a NuWave DSD (when not using the main boards DAC). Also a dedicated Mac is the server.
Audirvana can do the first unfolding of an MQA up to 96/24. It sounds much better than when the Tidal app does it. I also used the test set of recordings from the 2L website where they provide the 386/24 masters and their own encoding into MQA in addition to Tidal as a source.
The math for MQA is messy in my opinion and there are different ways to unpack and queue it with/without introducing phase distortion. It is just a different algorithm than the old HDCD approach. Maybe I will try to write my own decoder one of these days : )
So… on the above system I have concluded:
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I can hear that MQA is a higher resolution format
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If is not as good as the true master
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Different software does different quality jobs in the MQA decoding
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Your results will vary but it requires a carefully controlled experiment to quantity
Will be interesting to hear on my main system when the bridge upgrade is ready because it is a more high end setup.
Regards, Dan…
Paul
any update on when the UPDATE is coming ???
Tomorrow
The bridge update will apparently be released along with the Redcloud FPGA update this Friday!
Yup. Tomorrow for Bridge II and Redcloud for DS, DSJ soon to follow.
Soooo, maybe it is just my machine but when my bridge updated via mcontrol I get MQA but if you play something like Lorde - Royals in Tidal Masters via Roon it is 192K but if you look at the bit rate it flip flops from 16 mostly to 24. Lorde knows I am not recommending Lorde but I got home from my business trip to my new ATCs and I have been messing around with them and the bass on Royals is pretty good.
Anyone have the bit rate issue, all 192K is playing at 16 bit except where it randomly ups to 24 bits in the middle for a second now and again.
Thanks,
Veneet
Unlike most DACs the DS reports the sample rate and sample width it receives (it ignores any metadata about the sample rate and sample width.)
When it’s reporting 16 bits that means that it didn’t see any of the lower 8 bits being non-zero for a period of time. If your source is 16 bits and the source volume is unity and there’s no DSP (or replaygain, etc.) going on you’ll see 16 bits on the screen. If the source is 16 bits and you don’t always see 16 bit on the DS’s screen there’s some form of processing going on before the DAC.
Hi Ted,
Thanks for the always quick and useful answers. So if something in Roon says 48/24 after the unfold is it normal/expected that it would drop to 16 bit. I cannot find one 192K song that plays 24 bit in MQA (at least through Roon so far).
Ya something is not right here, even though Ted explains how the DS respond, it does not explain what changed. I am thinking that the upgrade to the Bridge is not unfolding the MQA properly and is not passing the resolution properly to the DS or something in RedCloud is more sensitive to resolution. The reason I suspect this, is I tried a few MQA Albums, prior to the latest bridge update and RedCloud update, from the McontrolHD app and it was processing MQA fine reporting the proper resolution as 24bit. Trying the same albums now through the McontrolHD app and ROON I am now not seeing the correct bit resolution. I now see 16bit on most if not all tracks that report as 24bit from McontrolHD app and ROON. Some times the resolution will oscillate between 16 and 24 on the screen. Something is not working properly and I think it needs to be treated as a bug that needs to be fixed.
It is the case that we don’t pass metadata (things like “resolution”) around in the DS so nothing like passing the wrong resolution is even possible. And further there’s no way that Redcloud can be more sensitive to resolution.
It’s also the case that there may be a bug, but there may not be a bug: we don’t have enough info yet.
It’s also the case that Paul said PS Audio would get to the bottom of it. So there’s no reason to worry just yet.
Is there any news on the 16 bit MQA readout quirk? I won’t call it a bug yet.
I plan to do the Bridge upgrade this weekend.
Thx, Dan…
I performed the Bridge II upgrade and I do see this bug with the 16 bits showing instead of 24 when and MQA files is sent to Bridge via Roon.
I have another data point to report. Not related to Roon but Audirvana 3.2 (just updated today and used in my second system) contains a feature that lets it route to a network enabled DAC and it now sees the Bridge II in its setting screens in addition to the NuWave DSD attached via a USB cable in system 2. It sends all files to the DSD as Wav and does not recognize the Bridge II as an MQA capable device.
It sounds great with Audirvana doing the first MQA unfold on the Mac and showing a higher res file on the DSD control panel.
If this Roon MQA mystery is not unscrambled maybe I will just use Audirvana as the player on both systems. I never need to have both systems playing at the same time. I could also sell my Bryston BDP-2 and just use a single Mac now.
Just a reminder that Roon is not yet performing the first unfold on MQA files. Not sure if that’s part of this issue or not, but seems relevant.