Originally Posted by Ratbert
Ian, I am sure I read on HH recently that one MQA decoder in a Sooloos system would be sufficient for any number of end points, if so then maybe the decoder is a sw licence key that permits the core or processor to unpack the MQA a data.
Actually, since writing my post, I read the ones on the general forum. I'm confused with decoding and rendering - other thread mentions rendering in the DAC. So what is the decoder then?

I'm use to the idea of decoding and rendering in other technologies, but fail to see exactly how this applies to MQA with regard to converting to >CD quality. If they create/render the >CD quality in the DAC, I can only assume that the decoder must have been decoding the MQA signal from the PCM stream and converting into some intermediate format (MHR/metadata? If so, what's been in MHR all this time that allows this extra information to be processed by legacy kit?) which contains the metadata for >CD, authentication and ADC characteristics to pass on to the DAC for rendering. Which kind of raises the point, why split the decode/render unless, as you say, MQA is licensed at the decode in which, it's one decoder instead of one per zone.

Roll on CES for the answers.

Meridian owner since 1992
Prime & PSU, Focal Elear headphones, Roon (ROCK 8Gi5 NUC), Explorer 1 & 2, F80. 200/203, various Sonos (via Roon).