TRACK FREQUENCY RESPONZE for MQA not correspond to reality

Studio
1

I’m listening to TIDAL Eric Clapton, B.B.King - Riding with the King. It is FLAC MQA Studio / 24/192kHz.

If I set the DAC as an MQA decoder, this analysis will be performed within 24kHz.

If I set the DAC as an MQA renderer, this analysis will be performed within 48kHz.

Neither of them corresponds to what I end up listening to.

Is it worth carrying out track frequency responsion analysis at all in these cases?

And if so, it should explicitly state that it does not correspond to what I am listening to (output from DAC).

2

It’s just output sampling rate. It’s pointless to do spectral analysis and expect to se something meaningful beyond 20KHz.

3

I cannot say whether it is worth analyzing files for frequency range. I think it’s a nice option.
With some hi res files it is very clear that a 44.1khz 16bit master has been used. And is not a real hi res from the masterfile.

The Analysis will probably be performed on the output of the Audirvana Studio decoder. When you let the MQA DAC decode it, there will be a 48khz sample rate and a 24khz spectrum. When you set the MQA DAC as renderer, There will be a 96khz and 48khz file coming out of the AS decoder. And so are displayed.

The MQA DAC will still perform the 2nd/3th unfold/upsampling step. AS can not analyze this. It can also not show the analog response from the DAC or loudspeaker.
It wil show what is in the file.

4

Repeat:
Is it worth carrying out track frequency responsion analysis at all in these cases?

And if so, it should explicitly state that it does not correspond to what I am listening to (output from DAC).

5

What do you expect to see?

The analysis shows in which frequency range energy is present in the file. If you want to know if it was a real hi res master then it is useful. If you want a more extensive analysis, you need another tool.

I don’t understand what you want to know. What the DAC adds is only upsampling. That doesn’t change the analysis. And is in such a high frequency range that it is no longer relevant.

6

click… (I’ve figured it out).

Frequency analysis of a signal is just a means, not a result. It’s a nice picture, that’s how it’s displayed.

Thank you.

7

Hi!
I have reported the same issue to Audirvana Support. The first email was “lost” but when i pushed for an answer to my query, someone replied (apologizing for not having seen the first email i sent) and informed that there is a problem with the information being displayed on the right side regarding the sampling rate and it will be corrected in a forthcoming release update.

3 Likes
8

Hi all!

I’m still conducting some experiments on this MQA/sample rate issue. So what i have done today was a bit more radical. I uninstalled my iFi ZEN DAC V2 drivers from my PC Windows 10 system and did a reboot. Now the windows 10 Audio USB 2.0 generic audio driver takes over. So i started Audirvana Studio and did more tests. I found some curious things.

  • In WASAPI mode, now, my DAC is correctly detected as an MQA Decoder (in automatic detection mode).
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  • Now the song “Riding with the King” by Eric Clapton and BB King on Tidal, choosing the MQA Studio album, is playing at 24bit 192 kHz and i even get the blue led icon next to it!!
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  • I “lost” ASIO mode, as the generic USB Audio 2.0 windows driver doesn’t have ASIO support. (Should i try installing a generic ASIO driver like ASIO4ALL or FlexASIO?!). Audirvana doesn’t let me choose ASIO giving “Error: No device selected”
  • I can choose Kernel Streaming mode, but some songs play and others don’t. The same “Riding with the King” song used above doesn’t play. I don’t get any error, but the song timer counter stays at 0:00 and doesn’t start. Most 16bit FLAC files play, some 24bit do others don’t.

So at the moment, if i use the USB Audio 2.0 Windows generic drivers in WASAPI mode, i get the best results so far in using Audirvana. It would be nice if i could use Kernel Streaming mode.