No, that's not correct Nick.

1. OP is using non-MQA-capable 861v8. The correct setting in Roon is "No MQA support". This will make Roon perform the first MQA decode and not add back rendering information, which the 861v8 would destroy as it won't pass the decoded stream bit-perfectly to the 8kSEs.

2. Roon defaults to "Renderer only" because we don't know whether the 8xx unit in which the ID41 sits is MQA-capable or not. "Renderer only" is the best compromise: MQA is always decoded and, if the ID41 is sitting within a rendering "system", then rendering will happen. ID41 users should adjust according to their system.


To answer another question posed by the OP: yes, adding the 218 will give you more than you currently have in terms of MQA, but you need to remove the 861 from the signal path and stream to the 218, not the ID41.

BTW, are your 8kSEs running the latest firmware?

Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum
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