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

Correct that means you're putting the already fully unfolded stream through the better DAC. The difference between this and your big rig will amount to the difference you perceive between the Ayre and the Meitner DAC's. I guess the Ayre is so small you could take it home and swap back and forth to see the changes in character with the big rig.
 
Jack said:
Correct that means you're putting the already fully unfolded stream through the better DAC. The difference between this and your big rig will amount to the difference you perceive between the Ayre and the Meitner DAC's. I guess the Ayre is so small you could take it home and swap back and forth to see the changes in character with the big rig.
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That’s right. I did a shoot-out between the Meitner and the Ayre during the spring. Hence the next thing would be to put an Auralic in front of the Meitner to see how the Meitner likes the hi-res signal.


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Kuoppis said:
The stream handed over to an Ayre Codex DAC are recognized as a 44K and a 48K input respectively. That means it looks like the Auralic is at least doing the first level unfolding.
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That means the Auralic is doing nothing and passing the MQA stream to the Codex unmolested. First unfold produces 88.2 or 96 depending on the source of 44.1 or 48 respectively.
 
You might want to read the rest of the posts between yours and the one you quoted from six hours ago. A lot changed after he upgraded the software and firmware to current versions.
 
Jack said:
You might want to read the rest of the posts between yours and the one you quoted from six hours ago. A lot changed after he upgraded the software and firmware to current versions.
Click to expand...

I did. Didn’t think that miss-understanding of first unfold should be left dangling in the thread. Good on Auralic for implementing their own renderer.
 
O.K. until the upgrade to 5.x beta in June you are right all it was doing was spitting out whatever the Tidal Masters software was providing just like the desktop versions.
 
Dr Tone said:
That means the Auralic is doing nothing and passing the MQA stream to the Codex unmolested. First unfold produces 88.2 or 96 depending on the source of 44.1 or 48 respectively.
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Yes, kind of. As all Tidal Hifi content sans MQA is 44.1 and shown as such and MQA playback is shown as 48, it means already the regular SW is doing basic level unfolding.

But with the Beta SW regular content is still 44.1 and MQA content 96 or 192. That is a huge difference.

My wild guess is the Auralic SW is at least able to unfold the high res stream, while not decoding MQA as such.


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Mike said:
Now that's cool! Wow. I would love a device that decodes MQA to ANY DAC.

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Not sure whether it just unfolds or decodes as well, but I now do get serious high res material. And that’s awesome.


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Kuoppis said:
Yes, kind of. As all Tidal Hifi content sans MQA is 44.1 and shown as such and MQA playback is shown as 48, it means already the regular SW is doing basic level unfolding.
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It was obviously doing something then but not a full first unfold. I think there is actually some 48kHZ source MQA content on Tidal. Far less common though.
 
How many unfolds before the laundry is ready for the wash machine? Don't some people prefer that the laundry remains partially unfolded? How many different pieces of software and hardware are involved in the MQA process from beginning to end in your system?
 
mep said:
How many unfolds before the laundry is ready for the wash machine? Don't some people prefer that the laundry remains partially unfolded? How many different pieces of software and hardware are involved in the MQA process from beginning to end in your system?
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1. Tidal does first unfold to 24/44.1
2. Something else (Lumin U1 for example) does second unfold - decoding to 24/96, 24/192, 24/356.
3. The DAC does final render and proper application of filters.

In the case of Lumin and Aurender, the Lumin A1, D2, S1, etc. and Aurender A10, do steps two and three in a single unit since those units have the network music player and DAC in one.


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Mike said:
1. Tidal does first unfold to 24/44.1
2. Something else (Lumin U1 for example) does second unfold - decoding to 24/96, 24/192, 24/356.
3. The DAC does final render and proper application of filters.

In the case of Lumin and Aurender, the Lumin A1, D2, S1, etc. and Aurender A10, do steps two and three in a single unit since those units have the network music player and DAC in one.


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Thanks Mike. How much software is involved in each of these handoffs?
 
mep said:
Thanks Mike. How much software is involved in each of these handoffs?
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There's software involved in each step. But since Tidal does step 1, there is only software for the decode and render. As an example, Berkeley had to rewrite their code (in assembly language) to facilitate the handling of MQA rendering (final step).


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Dr Tone said:
It was obviously doing something then but not a full first unfold. I think there is actually some 48kHZ source MQA content on Tidal. Far less common though.
Click to expand...

As said, all materials were 44.1 when played with the DAC only. Seems to be a tough concept.


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Mike said:
1. Tidal does first unfold to 24/44.1
2. Something else (Lumin U1 for example) does second unfold - decoding to 24/96, 24/192, 24/356.
3. The DAC does final render and proper application of filters.

In the case of Lumin and Aurender, the Lumin A1, D2, S1, etc. and Aurender A10, do steps two and three in a single unit since those units have the network music player and DAC in one.


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Click to expand...

Source MQA material is 24/44.1 or 24/48. First unfold produces 88.2 or 96.

At this point all data is restored. After this the renderer will apply the specified filter and upsample if the DAC is capable of higher sample rates.
 
Dr Tone said:
Source MQA material is 24/44.1 or 24/48. First unfold produces 88.1 or 96.

At this point all data is restored. After this the renderer will apply the specified filter and upsample if the DAC is capable of higher sample rates.
Click to expand...

Tidal does the first Unfold with no decode at 24/44 or 24/48. Second unfold and decode is done after that.

25522e8b33363ee24149723fd88a9324.jpg



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Mike said:
Tidal does the first Unfold with no decode at 24/44 or 24/48. Second unfold and decode is done after that.

25522e8b33363ee24149723fd88a9324.jpg


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Click to expand...

Thanks Mike, this is very clear.

That means, while not doing MQA because not being certified, the Auralic indeed can unfold and partially decode MQA files to either 88, 96 or 192 hi-res depending on source material.

Source material was played was forwarded to the DAC in different resolutions.


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Now I have an Auralic Mini in my main system as well. Downloaded the 5.2 beta program SW and I’m all set. It’s feeding the Meitner with a lots of 192K streams. Sounds fabulous.

Really fantastic when you think of it: I already had Tidal Hifi and a good DAC, just adding the Auralic is getting me hi-res through the MQA files. Can’t call it MQA though, as Auralic got off the official bus after CES 2016 [emoji3].


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