First: I don’t want to open another MQA pro and con thread. I’m only in here for playing…
After (more or less) wasting time I would like to get answer to following question.
Setup is:
-TIDAL subscription
-Audirvana (full version)
-Streamer based on RPi4 and Volumio software
-iFi ZEN DAC V2
-Accuphase integrated amp
Everything is running well. So my simple question:
DAC set in Audirvana “renderer” I get the magenta light.
DAC set in Audirvana “renderer and decoder” I get green or blue light.
If (!!!) I would believe in MQA what is the “target” to reach? Magenta or green/blue?
I asked this question very, very often and got a bunch of differing answers. So maybe anyone here can give me a final result…
Thanks in advance and greetings from Düsseldorf/Germany.
MQA is about the perfect delivery of the data. I hope it doesn’t matter which decoder you use. The end result should be the same.
It is possible that you will hear a difference between the colors. Go for what sounds best to you and enjoy the Music.
I would go for the decode on the DAC. There is an MQA license model where the software maker pays a fee to MQA Ltd per decode. It is not known to me whether this is also the case with Audirvana.
From the manual:
Audio Format LED (kHz)
The LED colour scheme indicates the audio format and sampling frequency received by ZEN DAC from the music source.
LED Mode
Yellow PCM 44.1/48kHz
White PCM 88.2/96/176.4/192/352.8/384kHz Cyan DSD 64/128
Red DSD 256
Green MQA
Blue MQA Studio
Magenta Original Sample Rate*
*MQB
Thank you.
The ZEN DAC V2 is a “full” MQA decoder.
Manual says:
magenta = original sample rate MQB (whatever that means)
green = MQA
blue = MQA studio
To be honest (and that’s my way to handle this) it is only a philosophic question. My old ears will (hopefully) let me recognize good or bad production. They can not HEAR any difference above CD quality. But, as mentioned, I only want to play
I agree with the majority here. There is no right or wrong way. Whatever sounds best is what I would go with. If there is no discernible difference, any of the above choices would be fine.
Not really, there is no benefit of doing the first unfold in software if the DAC is full MQA decoder. The unfolding in software is reserved for low processing power devices like dongle DACs.
Why would you want to do the MQA decoding in software if the DAC is full MQA decoder? It doesn’t make sense. You’re just putting additional processing burden on the computer when it can be done in hardware.
Not sure if it even works when sending unfolded stream to a MQA decoder. It can be verified by checking the MQA light on the DAC.
