Lumin MQA Settings

Mike said:
Peter - did this update improve the sound or am I imagining things?
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Firmware 9.05 improves MQA sound quality for Lumin A1 / T1 / D1 analog outputs. Were you hearing improvment from A1?
 
wklie said:
Firmware 9.05 improves MQA sound quality for Lumin A1 / T1 / D1 analog outputs. Were you hearing improvment from A1?
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YES! I was playing this album:

6eac7198b03bb6b790b75427f749e445.jpg


And heard such an improvement. Wow!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
still-one said:
Out of curiosity how would a Lumin unit (I guess U1) be set-up in a system with Tidal and Roon.
- Assuming you have a MQA capable RAAT DAC. Would you set Tidal up in Exclusive Mode and Pass thru. Open the Roon ap and somewhere select the Lumin U1 and then endpoint be whichever DAC?
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- For a MQA DAC that supports RAAT, it means it has Ethernet input and is Roon Ready, you don't need Lumin U1 unless you find that the DAC sounds better from USB or AES than from Ethernet, or it is one of the two brands of MQA RAAT device exceptions described below.

- For a MQA USB DAC, Lumin U1 will detect it is a Full MQA decoder, and automatically goes into MQA passthrough mode.

- For a MQA Renderer such as Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference 2 MQA, Lumin U1 does the MQA Core decoding to 96 or 88.2kHz by default, then Berkeley does the rendering to offer full benefits of MQA.

- For a non-MQA DAC, Lumin U1 does MQA Core decoding to 96 or 88.2kHz by default.

- Lumin U1 and all models of Lumin players support RAAT and show up in Roon as Roon Ready endpoints.

- When you use Roon, you enter the Tidal account details inside Roon, and do not use Tidal desktop app. Roon cannot do any MQA decoding currently, and therefore has no option for MQA passthrough - in effect Roon passthrough MQA by default if no DSP or volume changes.

- Note that two other popular brands of Roon Ready MQA devices can either only decode MQA or use RAAT, but not do both at the same time at the time of this post. They need more time to fix this limitation. Lumin does not have this limitation, and offers MQA decoding even when used with RAAT.
 
wklie said:
- For a MQA DAC that supports RAAT, it means it has Ethernet input and is Roon Ready, you don't need Lumin U1 unless you find that the DAC sounds better from USB or AES than from Ethernet, or it is one of the two brands of MQA RAAT device exceptions described below.

- For a MQA USB DAC, Lumin U1 will detect it is a Full MQA decoder, and automatically goes into MQA passthrough mode.

- For a MQA Renderer such as Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference 2 MQA, Lumin U1 does the MQA Core decoding to 96 or 88.2kHz by default, then Berkeley does the rendering to offer full benefits of MQA.

- For a non-MQA DAC, Lumin U1 does MQA Core decoding to 96 or 88.2kHz by default.

- Lumin U1 and all models of Lumin players support RAAT and show up in Roon as Roon Ready endpoints.

- When you use Roon, you enter the Tidal account details inside Roon, and do not use Tidal desktop app. Roon cannot do any MQA decoding currently, and therefore has no option for MQA passthrough - in effect Roon passthrough MQA by default if no DSP or volume changes.

- Note that two other popular brands of Roon Ready MQA devices can either only decode MQA or use RAAT, but not do both at the same time at the time of this post. They need more time to fix this limitation. Lumin does not have this limitation, and offers MQA decoding even when used with RAAT.
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Peter, thank you for the detailed response to my question. I have been very impressed for some time with your patient answers and the value you provide to this forum.

I understand that Tidal settings for Pass Thru can only be set within their web-ap. That is how I handled it when I had a Meridian 808v6.

I believe the answer I was looking for was when you indicated how the Lumin and Berkeley DAC would work together. Which Lumin output is used in that instance? Not USB I assume.
 
still-one said:
how the Lumin and Berkeley DAC would work together. Which Lumin output is used in that instance? Not USB I assume.
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I think Mike used AES when he got this combination to work. USB should work too, although I'm not sure there are reports of testing this configuration.
 
Stereophile is suggesting some MQA certified DAC or network player passes non-MQA music to MQA processing. (This way it is technically easier to implement.)

Lumin does not do that. Lumin playback of non-MQA music does not go through MQA processing, while maintaining seamless switching among MQA, non-MQA PCM, and DSD music.
 
Peter - Many thanks for clearing this up! I wondered about this and I'm sure a few others as well.

Cheers!
Mike
 
I continue to be impressed with the decision making process at Lumin and their customer support. Peter is always very quick at addressing questions and keeping everyone here informed.
 
Firmware 10.2 improves MQA DAC-side correction for A1 / T1 / D1 / D2.

Non-MQA music does not go through MQA processing and does not use MQA filters, for all past and present Lumin firmware versions.

Note: In Roon playback of MQA music, the signal path may show an unknown filter - this will become meaningful with a future release of Roon.
 
Status update on MQA certification for M1: it is progressing well.

By the way, a competitor released a $49.99 MQA firmware upgrade for what Lumin gave for free...
 
wklie said:
Status update on MQA certification for M1: it is progressing well.

By the way, a competitor released a $49.99 MQA firmware upgrade for what Lumin gave for free...
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I saw that too and thought, that's one more reason I LOVE LUMIN!!!

The value we get never seems to end:D
 
Lumin M1 is now MQA certified, making it one of the rare MQA Roon Ready integrated amplifier that actually decodes MQA over Roon RAAT (*)

In Firmware 10.2 for Lumin M1, the non-MQA digital processing path for amplification is optimized as well, so it will sound better than before, MQA or not.

So the whole Lumin network player/transport product line S1 / A1 / T1 / D1 / D2 / U1 / M1 are now MQA certified.

* There are other MQA Roon Ready products from other manufacturers that cannot decode MQA when playing from Roon.
 
wklie said:
Lumin M1 is now MQA certified, making it one of the rare MQA Roon Ready integrated amplifier that actually decodes MQA over Roon RAAT (*)

In Firmware 10.2 for Lumin M1, the non-MQA digital processing path for amplification is optimized as well, so it will sound better than before, MQA or not.

So the whole Lumin network player/transport product line S1 / A1 / T1 / D1 / D2 / U1 / M1 are now MQA certified.

* There are other MQA Roon Ready products from other manufacturers that cannot decode MQA when playing from Roon.
Click to expand...

Very cool Peter! And, there is no additional cost to Lumin owners! Kudos to Lumin!
 
Peter, thank you to the entire Lumin team for adding value to their audio product line over and over again!
 
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