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Vogon Civil Servant
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Vogon Civil Servant
Joined: Jan 2001
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Can MQA and Meridian really claim that the software MQA decoder in Tidal really betters the hardware MQA decoder in the 818v3 (and 218) when the output from both is 24/96, i.e. before the post-rendering stage? It's worth remebering that MQA were "heavily" involved in writing the Tidal app that came along in early January along with the launch of MQA thru Tidal 
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Hooloovoo
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Hooloovoo
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It's worth remebering that MQA were "heavily" involved in writing the Tidal app that came along in early January along with the launch of MQA thru Tidal I'll take that as a no then 
In the spirit of Spinaltap, I would like to confirm that I am not involved in the corrupt theft of a global sport.
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Pan-dimensional being
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Pan-dimensional being
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With Tidal MQA pass through either on or off the 818 still displays 352 on 2L material so that makes me believe the 818 decodes to the maximum rate available and then repackages it using MLP for transmission to the DSPs as you said. The SEs recognize that rate and the legacy DSPs stay at 96/24. Strictly MHO.
Ken
Main: G68J, 5K2s, 5Ks, HSU subs, Pio 151FD, Dish VP722, Roku, Wadia I70, Anti Mode Dual Core, Oppo 103D Vanity Lite
Office: SBT, Berkeley Alpha DAC 2/MQA, Magico S3 Mk II, Boulder 2060, Lumin U1 Mini streamer, Roon.
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Harmless
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Harmless
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Ken,
Can you tell me if you did the test with 818v3 and DSP speaker via SpeakerLink and digital coax?
What did you see on 818v3 display and DSP speaker display with material 352k in both cases?
Thank you, Gaf
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Pan-dimensional being
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Pan-dimensional being
Joined: Jul 2007
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Speakerlink out of the 818 to a pair of revivers attached to the DSP 6ks. The 818 display showed 352k and the 6ks had the 96/24 dot showing. Same in both cases.
Ken
Main: G68J, 5K2s, 5Ks, HSU subs, Pio 151FD, Dish VP722, Roku, Wadia I70, Anti Mode Dual Core, Oppo 103D Vanity Lite
Office: SBT, Berkeley Alpha DAC 2/MQA, Magico S3 Mk II, Boulder 2060, Lumin U1 Mini streamer, Roon.
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Joined: May 2015
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Harmless
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Harmless
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@Gaf
As far as I understand it, the MQA DAC is in the 218.
I don't know if your processor has DSP / Room-correction, but if it doesn't, then (as far as I know) the 218 could make your Auralic entirely redundant, although I might be wrong.
You'd run Roon from a Core & Remotes, connect the core to your home LAN, connect the 218 to your home LAN, tell Roon that the 218 was your Roon endpoint (or one of your many endpoints) and hopefully - with a software update - control the volume & switching through (Roon or) your processor.
You connect your speakerlink (output) from your processor to the 218 input, and the output from the 218 into your DSPs.
Does that make sense ?
It's the same as I'm going to do for my 861v8 processor - the 218 seems the simplest way to get full-fat MQA into my DSPs.... I was reading something about the 218 SpeakerLink connection, but we have to wait the end of march. Do you think in the same with an 818v3? I don't understand exactly which the connection is. For example I go outside from the surround processor SpeakerLink front left to 218 SL in, then ???
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Hooloovoo
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Hooloovoo
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We are talking about the potential of the 218 as a (much!) cheaper alternative MQA-enabled Sooloos/Roon end-point for use with DSPxx00DSP speakers. You would not want to use one with an 818v3 unless you also had an 818v6/8 as discussed here.
In the spirit of Spinaltap, I would like to confirm that I am not involved in the corrupt theft of a global sport.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Vogon Civil Servant
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Vogon Civil Servant
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With Tidal MQA pass through either on or off the 818 still displays 352 on 2L material so that makes me believe the 818 decodes to the maximum rate available and then repackages it using MLP for transmission to the DSPs as you said. The SEs recognize that rate and the legacy DSPs stay at 96/24. Strictly MHO. A perfectly valid conclusion Ken But just to emphasise again that what I've highlighted above in Red is EXACTLY what happens with the Explorer when fed from the Tidal app... with MQA Pass Thru set to On or Off... i.e. all the lights light up for both settings... And as all the lights light up... you might come to the conclusion that the Explorer is being fed with 24/192/352 from the Tidal app... whereas we know that it's only receiving 24/96 data from the 1st stage unfold carried is carried out by the Tidal app.
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Pan-dimensional being
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Pan-dimensional being
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Right and that's a quandry. Still, I assume the 818 and the SE master are displaying those numbers for a reason. And the lights on the EX2--what do the remaining white lights signify when the blue light is lit with MQA playing?
Ken
Main: G68J, 5K2s, 5Ks, HSU subs, Pio 151FD, Dish VP722, Roku, Wadia I70, Anti Mode Dual Core, Oppo 103D Vanity Lite
Office: SBT, Berkeley Alpha DAC 2/MQA, Magico S3 Mk II, Boulder 2060, Lumin U1 Mini streamer, Roon.
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President of the Imperial Galactic Government
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President of the Imperial Galactic Government
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When it comes to how MQA MAY [and I will again emphasize MAY] be fully decoded within a full Meridian DSP system... I think it can be instructional to look at what the Explorer 2 does when used with the Tidal app.
If you use the Tidal app with Exclusive mode on... but Pass Thru MQA off... then the Tidal app will perform the 1st stage decoding out to a max of 24/96.
That 24/96 stream is then passed to the Explorer... which in that scenario becomes what MQA call a "Renderer".
The Explorer then performs the 2nd stage unfolding... resulting in up to a 24/192 file being fully decoded.
I think it's possible that the same logic may be followed by a full DSP system... with e.g. the 818v3 doing the 1st stage MQA decoding / unfolding up to 24/96... with that 24/96 stream being passed to the DSP SE speakers to perform the 2nd and 3rd stage unfolding up to 24/352, for the files which offer 8x rates.
It's probably no coincidence that the stream from the 818 to the DSP SE's is STILL the 24/96 stream preferred for many years by Meridian, thus simplifying the whole Player to DSP cabling etc.
We all know how long we've been waiting for the promised 24/192 upgrade from Meridian [never mind a 24/352 one]... so this method of dealing with MQA streaming allows Meridian to use existing Speakerlink cabling... and any requirement for new cabling or connections to deal with a 24/192/352 stream from the 818 to the DSP SE's is avoided.
Please remember that everything written above is my opinion only... with no insider information... and Meridian may well be doing this in an entirely different manner First, I'm not disagreeing with you but... If what you say is accurate why can't a 218 or 818 be BEFORE the Preamp (861V4+ or G6x) so that you could still use Trifield and Room Correction? Ok you say it would "corrupt" MQA if you did that. But what about the Cross Over in the DSP Speaker and the DSP Speaker's DSP Processing (likely done before the Cross Over, and by definition BEFORE the DAC)? What happens with Boundary, Tone controls and "HyBrid" Volume? The full unfold would have to be before those things. So why can't it be done before the Preamp. Or why not do the full unfold in the 218 or 818? Is it because of limits of SpeakerLink (Balanced SPDIF or what ever you want to call it). Since it's unlikely the "DAC" chip itself that does anything special in regard to MQA and Meridian has and continues to use standard off the shelf DAC chips. I believe all MQA does is "adjust" the fully unfolded DATA Stream based on the characteristics of the final DAC. Or it somehow adjusts the clocks driving the DAC. Or does it control some analog behavior after each DAC? Will each "DAC" in a DSP Speaker do the last stage of unfolding? How could it possibly do that? If the original MQA stream was split by frequency. There are lots of puzzling pieces to MQA we may never fully get the answers on.
- Fiddler (IMHO)
If you think listening to music is fun, try learning an instrument.
HT: G61RSL, 4x5K, 5.5KHC, 2xSC6000, Transporter, HD621, Philips BDP7501 4K, Tivo, 65" LG OLED 4K C6
Computer: Foobar2000, 5K, Mojo, HiFiMan HE1000 V2
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Vogon Civil Servant
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Vogon Civil Servant
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Right and that's a quandry. Still, I assume the 818 and the SE master are displaying those numbers for a reason. And the lights on the EX2--what do the remaining white lights signify when the blue light is lit with MQA playing? Hi Ken In essence, the lights on the Explorer do the same as when you feed the 818 from the Tidal app The 818 displays the rate of the MQA track when it's fully decoded / unfolded... in a similar way to the way Roon displays both the folded and unfolded data within an MQA file So, the 818 displays e.g. 192k for the majority [approx 66% of the MQA Tracks from Tidal]... and 352k for the 2L material And in a similar vein, the Blue plus 2 white lights mean that the track unfolds to 192k So, both the 818 and Explorer imply they are receiving a 4x or 8x stream... when we know they are only receiving a max of 24/96 stream from the Tidal app's 1st stage unfolding Which still leaves open the question of how far the 818 is unfolding the MQA stream, before passing it onto its Digital SL Outs to the DSP SE's Obviously, the 818 is decoding / unfolding fully [Stages 1, 2 and 3] for output to its ANALOG outs... just as it will always send a 24/96/192 stream to its internal DAC for output to its Analog outs, even when HS=off and it's only outputting a 1x [44/48k] stream to its Digital outs
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Mostly harmless
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Mostly harmless
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Thanks to Ronnie for a very clear and plausible explanation of the stages of decoding/unfolding. I know its speculative but also super helpful.
Suppose the 1st stage MQA decoding is done by software. Could it add whatever metadata is needed to set things up preemptively for DSP SE speakers downstream to perform 2nd and 3rd stage unfolding and also "correct" for their own DACS? Can the speakers do that?
If it is even possible then do you think we only need an endpoint that passes through at 24/96 and keeps the metadata? Wouldn't that make hardware decoding in the endpoint unnecessary?
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