Sounds like, for most, they are going to be able to achieve pretty much all that people will want, except the 'blue' light of authentication, which I suspect, most people wont care about.
Is it not the case that the timing errors are corrected before unfolding. Joel?
I think so to a degree; clearly there is more timing information as the unfold takes place - that's the whole point.
What I find interesting is that the studios have nothing to lose by people choosing to play the undecoded file, up-sampled or not. However, MQA Ltd. *does* stand to lose licensing fees if companies choose to follow the Auralic route. [I'm a little surprised that Auralic isn't doing the first unfold, but I'm guessing it doesn't want to pay any fees.]
Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum I am #25 in the HH1 photo of fame.
Im also guessing that, by the time you get an MQA file properly handled ie the ADC signature is compensated for, that an upsampled file vs a properly unfolded file with DAC correction is, for most people on most systems, going to sound pretty close.
I believe that all ADC compensation is carried out in the 2nd / 3rd stage Unfolds... And where necessary is specific to the ADC used... And the User's own DAC.
The 1st Stage Decode is a generic "unfold" up to 2x rates... With no ADC or DAC specific compensation.
And just to be clear... I don't believe that Auralic is doing ANY of the Three Stages of Decode / Unfold.
Perhaps... But are you not assuming that once an 1x rate MQA file has been Decoded, that there is no further "Unfolding" of data that takes place in a true MQA Decoder?? ...
And the Graphics released by MQA would also appear to draw a different picture
My understanding is that for DSP's the first unfold is done in the case of an 818v3 on the digital input card and then passed to the DSP's as a decoded MQA file where the additional unfolds are done.
In the case of analog then the additional unfold is done on the 818v3 analog output card, at least that is what I have gleaned
It is very difficult to tell the difference between "pseudo MQA decoding" by Auralic and real MQA decoding within a top flight MQA enabled DAC. The Auralic decoded signal shows "PCM 352" on the screen rather than "MQA 352" for material recorded at this level - the Auralic pseudo decoding upsamples the undecoded MQA signal to exactly the same level as it was originally MQA encoded.
I guess Roon will offer the first level unfold under licence and then leave further upsampling or unfolding to the user.
Streaming: Roon, NUC, QNAP869 NAS 2ch system: dCS Vivaldi, Audionet Stern, Audionet Heisenberg, Magico Q1 Retro system: 101/104/105, Red Rose Spirit
But upsampling to 352 is no different to what you can do in Roon or HQP right now. It is not the original 352 signal as was encoded. No doubt Aurelic does a specific flavour of filters and profiles etc.
Ah, but, MQA is just upsampling to that anyway ?.......wrong. If the original source is not 96, 192, 352 etc then MQA doesn't create that.
Hundreds of the Tidal MQA albums are actually 44.1 in/44.1 out when fully decoded. And many of them sound very good indeed.
How they compare to tracks upsampled in Aurelic's product, HQP, Roon etc is all in the ear of the beholder.
Google Search
|
Meridian Systems
|
Meridian Streaming
|
Restaurant
|
WiKi
|
Duncan's Meridian Info
|
Board Rules
|
Restaurant Rules
