Best setting for listening TIDAL Master

[Krycek]

Good day all,
I am new to Audirvana. From the start, I found the sound superior to listen to TIdal with Audirvana vs listening to Tidal directly from the Tidal application on my DAC (Singer SDA-2c) USB connected to my computer.

I try to establish the best settings for listening to Tidal and more precisely the MQA files.
I have a DAC (non-MQA renderer or decoder a Singxer SDA-2, advanced) connected via USB to a computer, but it supports DSD up to DSD512.

Currently I am listening to TIDAL files with the parameter set to upsampling DSD512.
Then all TIDAL files (FLAC or MQA) are upsampling to DSD512. My computer (i7, 16GIG of RAM has no difficulty managing upsampling in DSD512).

Is this the best setting for sound quality?

Could I have a setting to BIT PERFECT for MQA files only (assuming Audirvana will do the first processing of MQA files)?

Thanks in advance for your recommendations!

[bitracer]

Disable upsampling and set MQA settings to non-MQA. That way you’ll get the first unfold in Audirvana. Your DAC is designed to be NOS (non oversampling), so play bit-perfect for best results.

[Krycek]

Thank you for your comment @bitracer .

However, what you are mentioning goes against my understanding. Indeed, the Singxer SDA-2 does not upsampling. On the other hand, the whole usefulness of using software like Audirvana which does upsampling with a more powerful calculation algorithm than most DACs, which have the possibility of doing upsampling, is precisely to do this calculation in the computer and then send a stream to the DAC which is perceived by the DAC as a native DSD stream.

Am I misunderstanding the usefulness of Audirvana in this case?

[bitracer]

@Krycek

However, what you are mentioning goes against my understanding. Indeed, the Singxer SDA-2 does not upsampling. On the other hand, the whole usefulness of using software like Audirvana which does upsampling with a more powerful calculation algorithm than most DACs, which have the possibility of doing upsampling, is precisely to do this calculation in the computer and then send a stream to the DAC which is perceived by the DAC as a native DSD stream.

It’s a common misconception. The whole point of having a NOS DAC is to avoid time domain smearing. This purpose is defeated by upsampling, be it in the DAC or external software. In addition, by upsampling you lose the first unfold of MQA files (Tidal “Masters”).

Maybe this can help you understand the upsampling better:

Q&A: Is upsampling better?

[Krycek]

Thank you for these details @bitracer. I’ll go watch this later.

I am now wondering whether with my DAC I have any advantages with Audirvana? I was mainly interested in Audirvana for upsampling?

[bitracer]

You do, it has nice interface and plays sublime.

[Krycek]

To be sure I understood how Audirvana works:
If I use the upsampling function, then Audirvana will not perform the first level of decompression of MQA files?
Is it correct to say: Audirvana will just do the upsampling as configured and will not do the first MQA decompression under these circumstances?

[bitracer]

Either that, or unfold and not upsample. Don’t remember exactly. Try it.

[Krycek]

Here is what the test gives according to the Audirvana interface:
MQA file (24bits, 44,1KHz), with Audirvana set to “Upsampling DSD512”.

This is why I wondered whether before doing the upsampling in DSD512, Audirvana performed or not the first level of unfold?

[bitracer]

So it’s not unfolding it just upsamples the file.