Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Tidal dumping MQA files

Sadly, the one USP left for Tidal has been withdrawn. Have been checking my favourite MQA albums, and most are now FLAC...Qobuz is cheaper, too.

A sad development.

All of my MQA songs on Tidal are still available through the Blusound Node. Maybe no surprise since the parent company acquired MQA.

Just wanted to let folks know you can still access MQA through this route.

But not so with Roon?

Have just cancelled Tidal. Perhaps feedback at that level may make them reconsider.

I don't have Roon, but have a Wiim Pro, and that has the same issue as people are reporting on Roon.

Wiim will issue a future firmware release to fix this.

In the short term, the Node works and plays all MQA material I tried and have saved in my playlists.

I'm playing via Roon to my 210 with this new fantastic Roon 2.0.28.
I selected an album by Talk Talk which is shown as MQA and I don't get MQA. I try to play the HiRes instead, same story.
Roon is so confused I don't even know what it's trying to stream. It sounds like garbage and floats in and out as if it's changing resolution as it plays and the G65 shows it as TV logic.

WHAT THE F DID ROON DO?? Excuse my french.

Does this mean I need an update for the 210 before it will understand what Roon is doing and until then I get this broken [censored]?

Every 48k song sounds like absolute trash with continuous dropouts.
Some 96k sounds produce no sound. I can see 96k on the speakers and no sound comes out. Others play fine.

Use Roon's signal path to confirm what is actually being streamed.

I'd check you have the default DSP preset setup as you wish on the G65.

What preset do you normally use for 2 channel audio?

Regards,
Carl

All the hi-rez MQA I listen to on Roon has been replaced by FLAC, but there's still some 44.1 MQA content that I'm in the process of comparing to higher rez Qobuz.
I will likely drop Tidal also now that the Qobuz library is filling out and I only preferred Tidal for MQA otherwise. A sad day.

Hi Carl,

Here's the thing. Roon says it's sending a mighty fine stream to me, the speakers show they receive the correct sample rate, but out comes garbage.
I play another song and it plays fine. I go back and play the same song again and it sounds like garbage.

Video of example

It's not the presets. It worked fine before the update, now it doesn't. And the 210 plays direct to the DSP speakers in this case.

Yes I started the 1 month free Qobuz account yesterday. Will evaluate this evening, busy watching PL games now

I just listened to your video, I hear what you mean ... it's all over the place till about 10 seconds or so in.

Is this problem only when streaming from Tidal to the 210?

What happens if switching Roon to a different source (local file) and/or to a different zone?

I think you need to post in #support over at Roon to get them to look it.

I tried with Tidal and Qobuz, The Pineapple Thief - "It leads to this". Both are 48k/24 and they both sound the same, exactly same issue with playback.
Roon says it's 48/24 and it's using RAAT. The right speaker says 48k. (The G65 which isn't really used but on says it's AC3 2/0.0 ).

I guess I have to question everything including my setup first.
The 210 Master SL is connected to the right speaker. The right speaker SL out is connected to the left speaker. I tried the left speaker direct from the 210 slave but it makes no difference.
210 SL in comes from the G65 L/R Master SL out, is this correct?

The 210 is playing from Net, Audio input is set to Network, Type of source is set to 1C (Meridian CD).
Every other Source is set to SL but not in use in this case.

Usually everything works fine with 44.1/16 but with 48k it's always bad and with 96k sometimes bad. Sometimes 96k gives me no sound out at all. One example is Norah Jones - Running.
Apart from the dropouts which always happen on the left channel speaker I also hear a difference in frequency response between left and right when it's bad.
Playing MQA44k sounds awesome. Can't find any 96k MQA to test with. Are there some left?

Hi,

I've only tried the Norah Jones track, but I don't experience any issues with playback (FLAC 96/24) thru either a 218 or a 210. My 218 is set up between the G65 and the master speaker (front L), much the same as your 210. My 210 is just set up a a source feeding into the G65.

I'm not sure that your setting for the 210 is correct at 1c, shouldn't it be 4c?

Edit: Just tried The Pineapple Thief, ‘It leads to this’ (Dolby Atmos) - with the 210 playing into the G65, the processor reports PCM 2ch 48k with the speaker reporting upscaling via MHR to 96k. Similarly, going direct to the speaker from the 218, the speaker also reports MHR 96k.

Sounds just fine with no problems.

Brian