Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital: MQA HW decoding at reasonable cost

[Jumpwire]

Is no one using MQA decoding with this DAC?

 

I based my purchase on this forum and another one. There was an earlier mention of the problem, but it seemed fixed.

 

The problem is NOT fixed in 2.12 Firmware update. The last promised update never came.

 

I am having constant MQA drop outs. 70$ USB Cable and LPS doesn't matter. 

 

There goes 500$. As much as I want to like this product, it feels totally half-baked with its broken MQA decoding.

 

[Jumpwire]

I would like the DAC to do full MQA decoding as its supposed to. I took a look at all three USB clean-up accessories you mentioned, and according to Audio Science Review they seem like snake oil. It seems stupid to keep throwing money at this DAC when most people report these issues without any guaranteed fix. I wonder if the Bluesound Node 2 has the same MQA issues? I might as well sell this thing and add 50$ to get a Node instead of spending another 200$ on another cable and USB plugin.

 

If I had the to burn I would try these products, but at this point it seems like I should just get a better DAC.

I was looking to buy a Pro-ject turntable in the near future, not anymore this company is totally black balled in my books.

 

 

[Jumpwire]

On 6/3/2019 at 9:45 AM, Jud said:

 

Look at Miska's response...

 

Thank you for clarifying it for me further. Wish MQA was a seamless experience at this point.

 

After pursuing Pro-Ject on social media I received an official response:

 

Quote

Hi, Of course we are aware of the dropouts. As are many different manufacturers who all have similar problems. The dropouts you are experiencing are MQA format related. Or rather are caused by the MQA encoding and the MQA code, responsible for the hardware unfolding, that is running on the XMOS chip. The MQA code is propriatory and is provided my MQA themselves, custom made for our device. This is why MQA related updates can take much longer to push out than regular firmware updates. The dropouts are highly variable though, and also depend on the song and how it is encoded. What you can try, is to set your playback software to do the first unfold, and then the rest of the unfolding is performed on hardware by the Pre Box S2 Digital (this is when you get the purple dot on the display of the Pre Box S2 Digital). Keep in mind many people do not have these dropout issues at all. It depends on the playback software, operating system and even the song you play on Tidal and its specific MQA encoding. We are working with MQA to get it fixed, as this is is also depending on our chosen hardware solution it can take some time for MQA to account for that and provide a build for us. Hope this information is able to give you a little more insight and we hope to have new firmware soon.

 

Also after much experimenting with Roon and Audirvana, I have come to the conclusion that Audirvana sounds best during the MQA dropout. Instead of having the sound dropout completely like Roon or the Tidal player it introduces a little bit of audible static while it looses decoding.

 

I will be utilizing the MQB workaround while patiently waiting for the next firmware update. Pro-jects response prevented me from selling this DAC right away. I asked if the update is scheduled for release this year and will post the response if any.