Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music MQA CDs and connecting players to a 218 via SPDIF

? Confused....

A 218 can only do what it's allowed / programmed to do.

In my setup, if I bypass my 861v8 completely and go from a streamed source (which in your case could be equivalent to a CD player into the 218 digital input) I believe it outputs the 'ultimate' resolution of the MQA file MINUS one step - because my SE speakers perform the final step.
However, that may not be true : the 218 may be capable of or be allowed to unpack the MQA file fully and to send that to a recognised output / speaker.

Perhaps someone else has more information about the processing-chain logic.

'Ultimate' doesn't mean 192kHz. It means the original sampling frequency that the music was encoded at, whatever that was. I have MQA 352.8kHz files and I've had a ~768kHz file demonstrated to me through a Meridian Ultra DAC (from memory : my memory - not the DAC's !).

CD (Red-book) native rate, by definition, is 44.1kHz / 16 bit - otherwise it can't be called a CD.
A MQA CD is probably a new specification which allows 24 bit files - but again, perhaps someone else can comment on that.
As MQA CD's are designed to be able to play on standard CD players, I assume that their capacity is limited to 750Mb, so you won't be able to get as much MQA music on to a MQA CD as you would if it was a normal Red-book CD !

So - your MQA CD's encoded rate will be 44.1kHz / 24 bit, whereas the underlying data that's compressed 'below the noise floor' will, when fully unpacked, be re-built into a complete & original 'nnn' kHz signal. The original signal - as we've seen on some Tidal files - can be 44.1kHz (Madonna ?) or 48 or 96 or 192 or 384 etc...

Regarding downsampling, this should only occur where it's beyond the capability of the 'receiver' to accept it e.g. my 861v8. I can send 192kHz / 24bit FLAC files to my 861v8 but it will always downsample to 96kHz because the architecture is specifically designed to accept 96kHz as a max, and then (ironically) upsample the signal whilst processing / applying DSP / Room Correction etc...
And, theoretically, any downsampling should destroy the 'packed' part of any MQA file - so downsampling's a particularly bad thing w.r.t. MQA.

Of course, I could be wrong....

MQA CDs are 16-bit to comply with the Red Book standard; MQA CDs *are* CDs. The consequences of 16-bit vs. 24-bit encodes are unclear to me, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

When Roon integrates MQA software decoding wouldn't it be cool if CD output could be sent through Roon for processing. Then we could see the details of the signal path😜

@Joel
Yep, you're right, so some of what I've written above is incorrect.

More - and correct - information can be found in this Stereophile article.

It appears that MQA encoding can compress a 24bit source-file down into 16bits, therefore allowing the (MQA) CD to be created as true Red-book.

If the 218 is designed to bring MQA to the masses, full MQA should be available from its analogue outs.

If it restricted a percentage of rendering / unfolding to be available only Meridian SE speakers, its market share of quality MQA streamer sales will be considerably reduced.

I'm not suggesting that the 8kSE's aren't better sounding than probably anything on the planet but to gain market share of the general SQ enthusiast, I don't think M will be selling the 218 with limited potential for analogue system usage.

I believe it is. The SPDIF digital out will be limited to a 96K stream, in which the data needed for further unfold, is encapsulated, to be unfolded by SEs or a downstream MQA DAC. I think this is correct but will be corrected quickly if not. I have come to appreciate my ability to misinterpret reading the facts and myths about this stuff. Now that CDs are out we can go round again.

If you have a 218 & SE speakers, then you connect with SpeakerLink...

Of course. I am just not discounting the fact that the encapsulated data for unfold beyond 96K by a downstream,authorized/recognized DAC may be contained in the output.

@James
Indeed !