MQA with Linux MPD

[snapback77]

I have an Explorer 2 DAC. It plays well through my voyage MPD headless Alix box. High rez up to 192 kHz. But, so far I have not been able to get it to decode 2L mqa files. I.E. no shining blue light. Any comments or help? Patience is a virtue.

snapback77

[Axiom05]

Make sure that your config settings allow bit perfect playback. Any upsampling or sample rate conversion will kill the mqa decoding.

[snapback77]

I discovered that my config setting is bit perfect. I am not certain what you mean about upsampling or sample rate conversion.

The following is my output settings:

audio_output {

type "alsa"

name "My ALSA Device"

# device "hw:0,0" optional

device "hw:0,0"

# format "44100:16:2" optional

# mixer_device "default" optional

# mixer_control "PCM" optional

# mixer_index "0" optional

dsd_usb "yes"

}

This all I could find about sampling:

# This setting will change all decoded audio to be converted to the specified

# format before being passed to the audio outputs. By default, this setting is

# disabled.

#

#audio_output_format "44100:16:2"

#

# If MPD has been compiled with libsamplerate support, this setting specifies

# the sample rate converter to use. Possible values can be found in the

# mpd.conf man page or the libsamplerate documentation. By default, this is

# setting is disabled.

#

#samplerate_converter "Fastest Sinc Interpolator"

 

Does this help? Thanks for your consideration. This stumps me.

km

[Ran]

You need to run the latest firmware on the Explorer in order to support MQA.

 

https://www.meridian-audio.com/support/computer-audio-support/explorer-2/

[17629]

"I discovered that my config setting is bit perfect. I am not certain what you mean about upsampling or sample rate conversion."

 

It means that you are altering bit/sample rates if you use this type of processing. Its not bit perfect under those settings.

 

"# This setting will change all decoded audio to be converted to the specified

# format before being passed to the audio outputs. By default, this setting is

# disabled.

# If MPD has been compiled with libsamplerate support, this setting specifies

# the sample rate converter to use. Possible values can be found in the

# mpd.conf man page or the libsamplerate documentation. By default, this is

# setting is disabled."

 

You want to leave both of those settings disabled.

[Richard Dale]

"I discovered that my config setting is bit perfect. I am not certain what you mean about upsampling or sample rate conversion."

 

It means that you are altering bit/sample rates if you use this type of processing. Its not bit perfect under those settings.

 

"# This setting will change all decoded audio to be converted to the specified

# format before being passed to the audio outputs. By default, this setting is

# disabled.

# If MPD has been compiled with libsamplerate support, this setting specifies

# the sample rate converter to use. Possible values can be found in the

# mpd.conf man page or the libsamplerate documentation. By default, this is

# setting is disabled."

 

You want to leave both of those settings disabled.

 

It might vary with different versions of MPD, but with Volumio 1.55 on a Raspberry Pi2 I found that when the 'device "hw:0,0"' line was commented out everything was resampled to 48 khz via dmix.

[snapback77]

I tried running the latest firmware for windows. No luck.

[snapback77]

I am not sure what you are suggesting. You are saying that the configuration shown in ok? I tried loading the latest firmware using windows and still no mqa on windows or linux.

[snapback77]

Hello,

I finally got the blue light to shine thanks to RAN above. After I followed the directions to run the latest firmware update from meridian it worked. I had to use a Windows 7 instead of Ubuntu but after connecting the Explorer2 back to my Alix box with Voyager MPD everything sounded beautiful. It sounds to me very much like 24/96 files with less grain with the strings and voices. I don't know why the encoded albums cost more than 24/96 downloads. The size of the MQA files are much smaller than those and even CD's 16/44.1?

This could go audio-viral if they sold for about the price of a CD.