Chord DAVE and ARIES Mini.

[rjb301]

Hi all.

Apologies of this has been answered before.

 

I have been running my DAVE for 18 months now and I have my ARIES mini connected via USB cable.  My understanding is that DAVE does not do MQA conversion.  However, just the other day I was listening to TIDAL via the ARIES and I just happened to choose an album that was MQA encoded and I noticed the screen on DAVE turn blue (192 kHz 24 bit) and it looked like to me it was playing the file at a higher bit rate.  IS this right?  Or is it the ARIES mini that has the MQA capacity?  I tested this with another four or five albums in TIDAL and same thing.  Some were up sampling to 88.2 kHz. Am I not truly getting the MQA encoding?  Not sure all this makes sense.  But I am certain that DAVE does not do this.

[ElviaCaprice]

That is correct, DAVE is just indicating at what sample rate it is receiving.  If any unfolding of MQA is being performed it would be before the DAVE.  

[George Hincapie]

Nice end point RJB301. The Aries Mini is lovely; I have one in my headphone station.

[rjb301]

Thanks George.  Yes.  Really happy with the mini. Great sound and stable.  Only problem I have is with the Lightning DS app.  Doesn’t seem to save all the artwork.  Not all of my titles have artwork and I haven’t worked out how to fix it.  

Rob.

[davide256]

4 hours ago, rjb301 said:

Thanks George.  Yes.  Really happy with the mini. Great sound and stable.  Only problem I have is with the Lightning DS app.  Doesn’t seem to save all the artwork.  Not all of my titles have artwork and I haven’t worked out how to fix it.  

Rob.

It's a good idea with Lightning DS to periodically remove the library, delete the cache, then add the library new and go have a cup of coffee while it rescans. Seems manipulating the underlying music directory files can cause glitches.  If after a refresh there's no artwork, I'm betting its not in the metadata and that there is no default cover.jpg file in the folder

[Dr Tone]

Aries has Auralic’s take on a full MQA renderer. It not licensed nor using anything MQA official. Probably pisses Bob off to no end.

 

Even though he’s implemented a renderer, Xuanqian recomends listening to regular non MQA as MQA loses dynamic range.

[Norton]

19 hours ago, Dr Tone said:

It not licensed nor using anything MQA official

 

Not least I guess because it's built on open source software, it would thus be impossible to remain compliant with the license requirements of both GPl and MQA.

[ElviaCaprice]

7 hours ago, matador86 said:

I am only guessing (we won't get any confirmation from Chord and that's understandable) but I think it's reasonable to guess the 2-box solution will be the only M-Scaler solution, for at least a couple years.

Won't get any confirmation from Chord for what??  MQA?  Rob Watts, designer, is not a MQA fan.  So future M-Scaler will also not unfold MQA.  The only M-Scaler currently is the BLU2 by Chord.  Do not confuse M-Scaler with unfolding MQA.