Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Explorer² with PC - not getting MQA

Kate Rusby was green light Danny. Well done all for helping here. Chris 😎

No; I was just being paranoid! playing the track I downloaded from the 2L site “Mozart: Violin concerto in D major – Allegro Marianne Thorsen” it is playing with the blue light on.

The Kate Rusby tracks are playing with green light on.

Thanks everyone!

Yes; the help I have got here is fantastic. I can't thank people enough. Appreciate your help the other night Chris. Without your assistance; I'd be trying to pull my hair out by now.

And you know how difficult that would be for me...

Danny, you have a solar panel for a sex machine lol 😎

Your post of 12:13 shows the device as DS: and not WASAPI:

T

Thanks a lot Chris!

That's only bcause the selection changed as I moved the cursor when using the snipping tool to take the screenshot. A rather poor design, that if you have that drop down open, a movement of the mouse will change the selection rather than requiring a click to select.

When I was trying to play the MQA files; WASAPI was selected.

Thanks for your help and advice earlier.

Ok; another dumb question. Are the sound settings in my PC now redundant because Foobar is doing the work?

I have changed the sound setting in the pc from 16 Bit 44 100 Hz to 24 Bit 192 000 Hz and it makes no difference to LED indicators on the Explorer2.





Thanks

Once you check that box to give Foobar exclusive use of your computer's audio device, Windows sound settings are disabled. You should notice that when Foobar is open, you don't get any of the normal system sounds. Once you close Foobar, everything returns to normal and the Windows sound settings take effect. If you have two audio devices in your computer, such as the built in audio and an Explorer 2, then it is possible to still have system sounds available from the device not being used by Foobar.

Charlie is absolutely right. If Exclusive Mode is enabled, the PC setting is irrelevant. However: In case you should feed your DAC with a sample rate which it does not support you will get an error message since up or down-sampling will not occur to adapt sample rate. But that is of minor importance.

Use Exclusive Mode, WASAPI Event with about 40ms of latency, set software buffer size to about 5 seconds, use High Thread Priority and MMCSS in Mode Audio. I have made very good experience with the Foobar Explorer combination in that way.

If you want you to do another favour load down RAM Disk and and load your playlist inside your RAM. As already said before take care that Replay Gain is disabled.

I have to state that the finding with the volume slider was quite tricky, well done. But it's clear: That volume is digital. So it uses DSP and hence prevents bit-perfect playback...

Sascha

Having just received my new Explorer 2 I could do with a little guidance.

I am using Roon.

If I connect to my QNAP TVS-471 USB the Explorer 2 works perfect, blue light, Green light and white lights.

With Windows 10 however, it seems you can have MQA or High Res but not both?

If I set 'The Desired bit/sample rate' to 44/24 I get MQA with Roon volume at 100% and control the actual perceived volume on the Windows control slider.

Playing the same track in 192/24 (non MQA) only lights the 44/48 light. Unless I set the 'Desired bit/sample rate' to 192/24. Then I get all three white lights showing but no MQA light when re playing the MQA track?

Surely you can't be expected to go into settings and change things for every different format?

Clearly I have missed something, Help... Chris

Ok, I think I have sorted it out.
In Roon I named the Meridian USB2 ASIO Driver to be System Output and disabled WASAPI.
Things are now working as expected.
I am offering this as I don't expect I will be the first one with limited computer skills to be stuck here.
Cheers Chris

Another tip. Completely remove your old drivers before fitting the latest drivers. If you don't, as I didn't, Windows won't see your Explorer 2.

Well it's all as it really should be now. Roon shows fixed volume and it does sound lovely even on these modest Denon Phones.

Chris