Roon & MQA - Software Decoding Is Coming!

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, firedog said:

Oops! Just noticed MQA playback through Roon isn't doing gapless properly - as opposed to same album not in MQA version. Will have to check this out some more.

 

Seems to be gapless transition between these 3 tracks, for me. This is the Tidal MQA 192kHz version.

 

 

[firedog]

Just now, Em2016 said:

 

Seems to be gapless transition between these 3 tracks, for me.

 

 

False alarm. it was apparently a Tidal issue, not an MQA one. I deleted the post.

[firedog]

Roon advanced settings:

No MQA Support - Roon Decodes, no Rendering info preserved
Decoder & Renderer - Roon passes through, Rendering info preserved
Decoder Only - Roon passes through, no Rendering info preserved
Renderer Only - Roon Decodes, Rendering info preserved.

[daverich4]

48 minutes ago, mav52 said:

This new 1.5 version of ROON now does DSP for MQA. meaning: it is now possible to use features like EQ, Room Correction, and Volume Leveling while still taking advantage of the rendering capabilities of your MQA DAC. "

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-1-5-is-now-live/42309?u=wklie

 

I don’t think that’s true. My understanding from the thread you linked to is you can do all the things you mentioned if you let Roon decode the file first but once you’ve done any DSP the file is no longer bit perfect which rules out MQA rendering after. At least, that was the way I read it. 

[asdf1000]

33 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

if you let Roon decode the file first but once you’ve done any DSP the file is no longer bit perfect which rules out MQA rendering after.

 

From the release notes linked earlier:

 

"We have also covered some new ground with MQA: Roon will not only be able to perform DSP on unfolded MQA content, it will do so without destroying the MQA Signalling information–meaning: it is now possible to use features like EQ, Room Correction, and Volume Leveling while still taking advantage of the rendering capabilities of your MQA DAC."

 

From Roon's CTO:

 

"The mental model wherein you worry about DSP+Room correction disrupting the stream is outdated. There are MQA-sanctioned ways for applying DSP to MQA streams, and Roon has implemented them. If you want to use DSP, use DSP. If you want to be bit-perfect, turn off the DSP."

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/how-to-enable-passthrough-without-mqa-decoding/42335/10

 

[Fridolin]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

...and it adds the MQA tag to all the MQA albums that Tidal provides. Makes it easy to identify them in order to add them to the library... or to ignore them. 

 

Is it also possible to filter out lossy versions of the Tidal catalog?

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

From Roon's CTO:

 

"The mental model wherein you worry about DSP+Room correction disrupting the stream is outdated. There are MQA-sanctioned ways for applying DSP to MQA streams, and Roon has implemented them. If you want to use DSP, use DSP. If you want to be bit-perfect, turn off the DSP."

This is really going to throw @FredericV for a loop :~)

[mansr]

50 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I don’t think that’s true. My understanding from the thread you linked to is you can do all the things you mentioned if you let Roon decode the file first but once you’ve done any DSP the file is no longer bit perfect which rules out MQA rendering after. At least, that was the way I read it. 

It's trivial to save the LSB, do some processing, then put the saved LSB back. That's all you need to do. The one thing you can't do this way is resample the output of the core decoder.

[mansr]

Oh, and Bluesound has been doing tone controls like this from day one. It's not new.

[asdf1000]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is really going to throw @FredericV for a loop :~)

 

Ha! Good for lol’s though.

 

PS: can you PM me which company with 10’s of millions of customers is signing up to provide MQA? I won’t tell anyone..

 

[FredericV]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is really going to throw @FredericV for a loop :~)

Updated Roon 1.4 to 1.5 yesterday, and it works as follows:

1. Roon decodes MQA to 24/88.2 or 24/96 (this works out of the box if you update from Roon 1.4 to 1.5, also update the control app, or it will say something like unknown renderer and unknown authentication).

So when both are at 1.5, it will show the following for a 96K MQA file:

 

 

and this for a 192K track, which is actually never any better than 96K of actual resolution

 

We made a nice shootout between 3 versions of this well known track:



2. Roon sends this PCM bitperfect to our squeezebox protocol based player which runs on the same machine (we don't use Roon's own output), which includes our custom 432 Hz processing and/or upsampling.

This is configured outside Roon, and the Roon core is not aware what we are doing with the signal:

If you put Base and Target to both 440, the 432 EVO acts as a high-end upsampler.
 

These 10 filters are explained here, and are available as a a free update:

http://432evo.be/sqi

Remember that any futher processing after the first unfold is not adding any new information, but merely leaky minimum phase upsampling to achieve their time domain claim, with custom transient responses. So in the above example, the 192K version will not have more information than the 96K version, unless the mastering was different, but still the information contained in MQA will be band limited to 24/96 at best, in reality more like 17/96.

The last year we have been refining our own upsampling recipes, including several linear phase filters, minimum phase, minimum phase with time domain mode (= one cycle of postringing) and also to our ears, the much better Archimago filters. This whole project is now named SQi, for Sound Quality Improved. This was mainly designed to work with existing non-MQA files (redbook & real highres), but also works on MQA files and the output of the core decoder.

So in essence, the MQA renderer in our solution is being replaced by our own upsample recipes, under the SQi umbrella.

For us this the best solution. We never liked MQA's weird renderer filters, which were dumped by @mansr . So doing the first unfold in Roon, and having the customer decide which DSP recipe he likes the most, or just put the player in bitperfect mode which will pass the 24/88.2 or 24/96 as-is to the DAC, gives more freedom.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

It's trivial to save the LSB, do some processing, then put the saved LSB back. That's all you need to do. The one thing you can't do this way is resample the output of the core decoder.

Yep, Roon says as long as you don’t resample/upsample the MQA file, you can perform other kinds of DSP on the MQA and then send it to be rendered MQA style by an MQA DAC. 

Or alternatively, send the file after unfold, etc., to a program like HQP for upsampling, filtering.

[mansr]

26 minutes ago, firedog said:

Yep, Roon says as long as you don’t resample/upsample the MQA file, you can perform other kinds of DSP on the MQA and then send it to be rendered MQA style by an MQA DAC.

The question is, however, assuming the render filter was chosen for some reason, whether this is still valid after some arbitrary processing has been performed.

[firedog]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

The question is, however, assuming the render filter was chosen for some reason, whether this is still valid after some arbitrary processing has been performed.

Roon’s basic position is that it tried to set up the whole MQA thing as done “for dummies” - meaning your average user, not someone who wants to mess with all the details. I think if you read their explantions of what they did and why, it makes sense for probably 80% of the users. 

[rickca]

11 minutes ago, mansr said:

The question is, however, assuming the render filter was chosen for some reason, whether this is still valid after some arbitrary processing has been performed.

Since we don't know why a particular render filter was chosen, we will never know the answer to your question.  But it's still a good point.

[asdf1000]

6 hours ago, FredericV said:

For us this the best solution. We never liked MQA's weird renderer filters, which were dumped by @mansr . So doing the first unfold in Roon, and having the customer decide which DSP recipe he likes the most, or just put the player in bitperfect mode which will pass the 24/88.2 or 24/96 as-is to the DAC, gives more freedom.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

So are the MQA 1st unfolds (with NO further MQA rendering) of both MQA versions you have technically better or worse than the CD quality version you have?

 

It may not be 100% identical to a 24/96 purchase (assume same master) from HDtracks or wherever but if it’s better and not worse than the CD quality (assume same master), this is good no? 

 

Assume no MQA DAC rendering past 88/96kHz in all of the above.

 

And again, only comparing MQA 1st unfold to CD quality (assume same master) - the MQA version is better in this case? 

[Rob_]

15 hours ago, Miska said:

Works with HQPlayer too, so you have lot of options for upsampling filters instead of the MQA set.

 

 

Hi @Miska, could you explain how I could set this up? 

[bibo01]

22 minutes ago, Rob_ said:

 

Hi @Miska, could you explain how I could set this up? 

@Miska

Furthermore, in a non-Roon setup (without initial software unfolding), is it best to use poly-sinc-mqa? 

[Miska]

On 5/3/2018 at 11:02 AM, Em2016 said:

When using Roon+HQP, the MQA signal doesn't 'carry through' to an MQA DAC does it? The way Roon DSP does now with v1.5? So that the MQA DAC shows it's MQA indicator.

 

I'm guessing there's no chance of that ever happening?

 

No, because the purpose is precisely not to. HQPlayer's purpose is to replace DSP processing in DACs and use DAC only to do what it is meant to do, convert the digital data to analog without any processing.

 

There's completely no point to combine HQPlayer and any DAC side processing like "MQA rendering" (aka upsampling). So if you use HQPlayer, it is HQPlayer that does the "rendering" and the DSP operations are supposed to end there. To have a "software defined DAC".

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, Rob_ said:

Hi @Miska, could you explain how I could set this up? 

 

Just like you generally use HQPlayer with Roon. Nothing special is needed.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/HQPlayer_Setup

 

8 hours ago, bibo01 said:

Furthermore, in a non-Roon setup (without initial software unfolding), is it best to use poly-sinc-mqa?

 

Yes, it fits both cases...