MQA already dead in the water? No full decoding DAC alternatives...

[Unworthy]

At this point only the 205 will do MQA. They would have to release the Firmware upgrade to the Sonica for it to do it too.

Thanks, I can be patient, for a little while ��

 

[GSOphile]

Mastering engineer's view:

http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

 

[CPP]

At this point only the 205 will do MQA. They would have to release the Firmware upgrade to the Sonica for it to do it too.

From what I got from OPPO today was that at this time the Sonica DAC uses a much lower powered decoder so they are not sure if MQA can be added to the Sonica DAC.

 

[Jack]

Chris

I'll asked Dan and will see what he thinks as he has had them both disassembled and on the workbench. Hard to imagine with the cost of the DAC chip and the balanced architecture that they would have used a decoder less capable than the ones used in the Explorer, the new Project DAC and the Dragonfly. All of whom sell for much less than half of the price.

 

[CPP]

Chris

I'll asked Dan and will see what he thinks as he has had them both disassembled and on the workbench. Hard to imagine with the cost of the DAC chip and the balanced architecture that they would have used a decoder less capable than the ones used in the Explorer, the new Project DAC and the Dragonfly. All of whom sell for much less than half of the price.

I see it the same way, you would think a DAC using the ESS ES9038PRO SABRE DAC chip would be capable unless OPPO used a different decoder then the one in the 205. For $799 I would have thought the Sonica would be able to support MQA but hey I don't design dacs.

 

[Jack]

I suspect they may be stalling to see what level of outcry they get from owners and perspective buyers before committing to the Royalties involved. I'll see what Dan says. Not that big a deal to me as like you I have the Lumin and really haven't found that much on the list that interested me that much and sounded that much if any better. That is why I just bought the 203 to use as a transport and very infrequent video player. Other than the recent firmware upgrade the 203 and the Sonica get me to the same place as the 205 in that system.

 

[wklie]

From what I got from OPPO today was that at this time the Sonica DAC uses a much lower powered decoder so they are not sure if MQA can be added to the Sonica DAC.

I think both use the same DAC chip. They probably mean the CPU is much less powerful instead.

The Dragonfly also uses a very low powered CPU so it can only do MQA rendering, not full decoding.

 

[Jack]

Peter

This is the processor in the Sonica. I don't know it's capabilities for MQA but maybe you do.

Cortex®-M4 ARM Processor
The Sonica DAC uses an ST-Microelectronics STM32F401 ARM processor (delivers 105 DMIPS/285 CoreMark) to control the unit. This computer serves more as a user control device since most of the real processing is done by the ESS DAC. Nonetheless, the ARM processor has 512 Kbytes of Flash, 96 Kbytes of SRAM, supports floating point math and has many of the common serial ports (USARTs, SPI, I²C, SDIO, and USB) making it an ideal choice for this platform. Firmware can be updated using the phone app.

 

[wklie]

That's too weak for CPU intensive features.

 

[wklie]

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/oppo-sonica-dac-is-it-roon-ready/33590/9

 

[Jack]

Peter

That's too bad if they decided to save four or five dollars in parts after all the other positives parts and design wise as they could have been in a position to really boost their sales in the under $2k market especially with the streamer included.

 

[Kuoppis]

Have you guys seen this:

http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

Simple and to the point from a leading audio engineer: Isn’t it a bit of an English thought that Bob Stuart needs to “correct” the work all the audio engineers of this world do?

A little more emphasis in the upper mids and down the lower mids plus a bit of distortion as tubes add to make it sound nicer. The perfect “audiophile” recipe.

Aren’t we all a bit predictable [emoji3].


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[Kuoppis]

A nice correction to the initial list if anyone wants to test MQA with a decent DAC: The Heron update renders the PS audio DirectStream DACs MQA compatible. These are serious contenders, as I find, to dive a bit deeper into the format.

Interestingly enough the change is implemented as a running change through modifications to the FPGA programming - for free. At the same time MSB needs to change the USB module to achieve the same (= MQA only works via USB). This also means that Meitner, Playback Designs, Ayre and all the other FPGA DACs could render themselves compatible quite easily, in case they would like to. But succumbing to Bob’s scheme would mean to relinquish control of the DACs sound to MQA, as Aurender has pointed out in their statements - which is unlikely to happen. The companies would lose at least part of their competitive positioning and accept a royalty burden in the process.


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[Jack]

That's why you need to audition a "reasonably" priced model that you can turn over to see if you hear what others claim. The OPPO 205 or the new Brooklyn+ should give you that ability compared to the same album on the Meitner.

 

[Kuoppis]

That's too weak for CPU intensive features.

Either too weak or too little available memory for additional features.


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[Kuoppis]

That's why you need to audition a "reasonably" priced model that you can turn over to see if you hear what others claim. The OPPO 205 or the new Brooklyn+ should give you that ability compared to the same album on the Meitner.

Jack, in a way I do agree, in a way I am not sure.

On the one hand I agree, it might be foolish to put 5-10K into a simple test where you don’t know afterwards whether you will keep the kit.

On the other hand, it might not be a fair fight to put an acclaimed Meitner against an also running DAC an then conclude MQA does not sound as good.

It is a bit tricky.


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[wklie]

That's too bad if they decided to save four or five dollars in parts after all the other positives parts and design wise as they could have been in a position to really boost their sales in the under $2k market especially with the streamer included.

I fully understand that users will see it this way. However, normally people in electronics industry strive to choose parts with the right spec for their specified requirements. They would consider themselves not doing a good job if they over-spec unnecessarily, especially for price-sensitive mass market products. Over a decade ago an executive in a factory (not my current employer) taught me that saving even 1 cent is hugely important to them - that's their job. This has been true for many products for decades, until you put a network port in the product and allows for firmware upgrade. Clearly certain features were not in the initial spec otherwise they would have chosen a more powerful CPU.

For DAC products it is not uncommon to see really low power processor being used or no general purpose CPU was used at all, both because higher power was not originally seen as necessary, and because high power CPU is not necessarily good for SQ.

 

[Jack]

While I may agree, not having heard a Meitner DAC, that the comparison "may" not be fair on equal material that is not what we are discussing. We are trying to see if you think MQA is worth a five figure investment. For that purpose trying the "lower priced" components for MQA is not unreasonable. There is only one way to do MQA if you believe in Bob Stuart's philosophy. Even he put out a $300 DAC as an example of how great his invention was. You need to remember that OPPO and Mytek are at heart Internet Direct companies without the 3x-5x distributor/dealer and advertising mark-ups. If they were dealer only items their pricing would be more inline with the Meitner like Esoteric and others that are MQA certified. If you have to have the pricing closer to make you feel better about the contest then order the new Manhatten II at 5995 Euros.

 

[Jack]

Peter

I understand and chances are the Sonica was spec'd out long before MQA became an issue. It's release was delayed by months by ESS.

 

[wklie]

Simple and to the point from a leading audio engineer: Isn’t it a bit of an English thought that Bob Stuart needs to “correct” the work all the audio engineers of this world do?

MQA is not trying to correct the work by the mastering engineers. It is done to improve (correct) the impulse response of the ADC, for timing measurements not previously considered important by the industry but is now determined to be really important by MQA.