AUDIRVANA & IFI ZEN DAC with imac pro

Hi to everyone,
Recently I bought the Ifi zen dac which I connected with my macbook pro.I download Audirvana and I tried to play MQA songs from Tidal.Even though it seems that Tidal delivers 24/192khz at the bottom left screen of Audirvana the final sound delivered at the bottom right side is 24/96khz.Am I missing something to Audirvana settings.Please help.

Set the MQA settings manually to “MQA decoder”. You can also disable the MQA auto detection.

Thanks a lot for your help.I will try your advice

The Zen dac is just an MQA renderer, not a full decoder

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Sorry, my bad. Didn’t check.

I think that I have already selct the option of MQA decoder and still didn’t deliver 192khz but I will try again.

have you tried in wasapi mode?

Hi, this thread is helpful for me too. I am using Audirvana & IFI ZEN DAC firmware 5.3c with GTO enabled at Windows 10 64bit environment. I can see to play MQA 24/352.8 KHz Stereo file to WASAPI as 24/352.8 kHz Stereo. But, only to ASIO as 32/88.2 kHz Stereo. It’s a little bit confusing for me because 1. I heard that ASIO is recommended at Audirvana. 2. IFI ZEN DAC is an MQA renderer, not a full decoder, thus only I can play MQA at max 192 kHz.

You should be able to achieve the full unfolding in both modes. Does your DAC detect MQA in ASIO mode? Have you set it to MQA decoder?

Yes, you can see I set as you guide, but the result is different from your expectation.

You have selected MQA Decoder but you said your device is a MQA Renderer, if you change the MQA setting, do you still have the issue?

Hi, this DAC is actually a MQA Renderer, but you told me to set it as MQA Decoder, so I did it like that. The result is same with MQA Renderer.

That’s strange since when you use it in WASAPI it works properly, have you contacted iFi about it to have more information about it?

Is it not the case that what you see in AV is what AV has done, i.e the result of the first unfold? I see 32/88.2 on the right of AV and had assumed that the renderer was doing the rest. Is this not the case?

I did, but I didn’t get the answers to my question. I think they don’t have enough experience or test to my question.

@Antoine, on Windows 10 When I choose WASAPI

DSD, up to 64
PCM, up to 192
MQA Renderer
MQA stream all play fine, The Carpenters with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is MQA 24/192 and output shows 24/192. Zen DAC light is Magenta.

The following sample is David Elias MQA demo.

When I choose ASIO (iFi device driver 3.2 installed)

DSD, up to 256
PCM, up to 384
MQA Renderer
MQA stream play fine, but shows 24/96 from the same The Carpenters album from above. Zen DAC light is Magenta.

The following sample is David Elias MQA demo.

We may be looking in different places but the Driver for my Zen DAC is version 5.3. per the ‘info’ tab of driver properties.

Worth a check?

WASAPI-> peut voir l’indication MQA ->ASIO ne voit pas cette indication car il n’y a pas de conenxion MQA avec ce gnere de driver-> ce qui compte c’est le retour du device en phyqieu (qui est bon donas votre cas)

@purplemountain and @ArnoldC there is something i should inform you, When you use WASAPI, this type of driver can see if it’s an MQA content, that’s why you have in Audirvana the proper frequency displayed. The problem with ASIO drivers is it can’t see the MQA information as it has not been design for it. That being said what matters in ASIO with MQA is what you see physically on your device (in your case Magenta color).

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Oh, Damien3. Does it mean that ASIO has no disadvantage over WASAPI? ASIO plays the same bit rate as WASAPI though Audrvana shows the lower bit rate at the right bottom?

It doesn’t, you need to take a look at your DAC instead of Audirvana while you play MQA content using a ASIO driver.

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