So, with the announcement that the first roll-out of MQA firmware for some Meridian kit is going to hit us on the 04th February (yay!) and the comment or confirmation that the 861v8 surround processor won't be part of this initial group, my question is - meant in a positive spirit - how can I join the party ?!

I have an Explorer_2 so I'm guessing I'll have to stream from a PC / laptop through the Explorer_2 to it's analogue out, connect that via a 3.5mm to RCA stereo cable to an analogue input on my 861v8, adjust & update / upload my config file for this (new) input, and listen to the output which will be re-digitised to 96/24 & then go back through the DAC, finally through MHR to my DSP-SE speakers.

Signal chain : MQA (digital) file on a laptop / PC -> Explorer_2 (through DAC to Analogue out) -> 861v8 analogue input card (ADC converts to 96/24) -> DSProcessing etc -> DSP speakers (over MHR, and converted in DAC to ??KHz/??bit).

Correct ?

Trinnov Altitude CI-12; Meridian 861v8 + ID41 + UHD722v2 + 271, 2*SE-update DSP8.2Ks, SE-update DSP7200HC, 4*DSP3200, 4*DSP33, 218, 251
JVC DLA-NZ8; Panasonic TX-P60ZT60E; Lumagen Radiance Pro 5348
Roon [13i7 Win.11 NUC]; SKY Q; Oppo UDP-203EU; AppleTV / Fire Cube / Roku / NVidia