Go to the Roon site and look at the 1.5 thread there. At the beginning of the thread is a line of questioning and answers which will be illuminating to say the least.
Anders Vinberg, longtime member here and confessed Microsoft affiliate, asked questions from a Full Meridian SE Speaker/Theatre Owner point of view. A link to that thread as a separate topic here (or in the best spot/Sub forum by some one technologically more gifted than I) would be useful.
I have only read the first 10 or so posts. It will be over a hundred by now. Exciting news about MQA unfolding, old Sooloos endpoints passing MQA on, room correction, etc.
I posted the link to Anders' thread, the point he was making was that currently with Roon, a Meridian MQA endpoint and SE speakers you have to ensure the Meridian endpoint is doing the MQA decode and not Roon as the SE speakers will not recognise the rendering information in the decoded MQA file if it comes from anywhere other than a Meridian MQA endpoint, apparently this issue is known by Meridian and a fix is being worked on, but no timescales have been given.
Despite Anders' system having the ability to decode and render using the 818v3 and DSP8000SE’s I believe he prefers Roon EQ and room correction and is willing to forego the rendering therefore he does the MQA decode in Roon.
To ensure the endpoint is set to do the decode you go to the device setup page in Roon and then go to show advanced and ensure MQA capabilities is set to decoder and renderer.
Despite Anders' system having the ability to decode and render using the 818v3 and DSP8000SE’s I believe he prefers Roon EQ and room correction and is willing to forego the rendering therefore he does the MQA decode in Roon.
As do I: MQA --> Roon decode --> Acourate RC DSP convolution in Roon --> 818v3 --> 8kSE.
Sounds incredible in my small office.
Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum I am #25 in the HH1 photo of fame.
1) What the difference between decode and rendering for the Meridian devices? Is decode just a decode of the MQA stream in a particilar device? And rendering is to use the DSP engine in Roon?
Rendering only takes place within an MQA DAC. Your 8k.2s don't have MQA DACs, so rendering is not relevant. Your 218 does have an MQA DAC, but unless you are using its analogue output, again, rendering is not relevant.
What matters is that Roon can perform the first unfold from 1x sample rate "MQA" to 2x sample rate "MQA Core", apply any DSP you like, and send the 2x rate stream to your ID40 or your 218 (or another other Meridian Sooloos endpoint).
With the 218 you can choose to pass-through the 1x MQA stream and let the 218 decode, but it will only output a 2x rate stream to your 861 and/or speakers.
Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum I am #25 in the HH1 photo of fame.
Decoding is when an MQA encoded file is identified decoded and the rendering information is extracted, in an 818v3 DSP8000 setup this is what the 818v3 does. In Roon 1.5 this is what has just been enabled and is configurable.
Rendering is the additional information passed to the DSP’s if they are SE’s which allows them to playback the highest available resolution from the file, non SE speakers will not do the rendering the negotiation for this takes place between the 818v3 and the DSP over MHR, the speaker capabilities are shared with the processor and only the applicable data is sent, eg: the processor doesn’t just send the full render file and let the DSP try to make the best of it!
As for analog output the full decode and render is done in the 818v3 and passed to the phono/xlr outputs.
The ID40 is an input card, it does not in itself do MQA, it is the processor that determines that.
The 218 does full MQA decode and render to analog and decode with render information for the DSP if it is an SE over SpeakerLink.
I believe this is correct, apologies if there are any errors?
Thanks Joel and Russ, it’s now more understandable for me.
ALL these questions below are for DSP only:
Decode with Roon is the first step/process to get the MQA Information? Rendering is the last process it’s done in the SE speakers?
Software-decode with Roon OR Hardware-decode in the 218?
But there are "only" two steps - decode and rendering?
Reason for asking here is for the 218. Roon could make the first step with the SW decode, and the 218 can/should render? (For analogue the 218 can render as Russ say)?
So maybe after the first SW-decode from Roon (not made in the 218 "just" delivered as a decoded MQA stream to the 218 ?? ) then the 218 could do some part of rendering for the non SE speakers as the 218 have the option to select "Renderer only"?
Could that maybe a future option for non-SE speakers?
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