Haha, a little too late with that, but we'll go with that then!I’d rephrase the question as do different USB receivers with hardware MQA decoder decode MQA better than others? DAC has nothing to do with MQA as it only cares about the incoming LPCM bits and sample rates before oversampling and bit-reduction (or DSD from HQPlayer or other hardware upsampler such as Chord MScaler)
Haha, a little too late with that, but we'll go with that then!
I meant dac implementations with MQA, but I can see how that would sound improper given the information you just provided. So what are your thoughts on that question then? Any idea if some decode MQA better than others?
The MQA "core" decoder should produce the same output regardless of where it runs. The "rendering" part exists in a couple of variants that differ in whether noise is added before or after upsampling.Like the title says, do some DACs decode MQA better than others?
Of course, a DAC performs differently than another, but when it comes to MQA, do some decode it better than others as well?
Is it?DAC has nothing to do with MQA as it only cares about the incoming LPCM bits and sample rates before oversampling and bit-reduction
Not quite. If a DAC detects the MQA signature, it is supposed to apple the MQA-prescribed filter and upsample to whatever rate it wants. The displayed rate, if any, need not have any relation whatsoever the one actually used.If a DAC detects the MQA watermark it is supposed to apply a MQA prescribed filter and upsample with a certain rate.
Are different DACs meant to use different filters for the upsampling part? I though that was their flimsy excuse for why full unfolding wasn't allowed in software decoders.If a DAC detects the MQA watermark it is supposed to apply a MQA prescribed filter and upsample with a certain rate.
That's what they'd have you believe. It is, however, not the reality.Are different DACs meant to use different filters for the upsampling part? I though that was their flimsy excuse for why full unfolding wasn't allowed in software decoders.
That's what I figured. Given that their upsampling seems a broken idea, not using it and only using a software decoder is going to be a better solution, so in my head no one wants an MQA DAC.That's what they'd have you believe. It is, however, not the reality.
How are we still talking about MQA? It's a scam, people. No actual benefits in it. It's just a compression codec, you don't need any special hardware to decode it more than you need it to decode any other codec. All it does is taking hi-res files and apply lossy compression to them to make them fit in the same bitrate that fits 16/44 files. If you want to listen to hi-res, just get hi-res files. Data rate and storage space are super cheap and available, you don't really need lossy compression.
It depends on the certification requirement from MQA. Some codec vendors require very high level of matching against their own results. Some not.Like the title says, do some DACs decode MQA better than others?
Damn that bad? I thought it was underrated, not completely useless. At least I didn't factor it into my dac choice.Firstly there shouldn't be difference in decoding.
Also, does it matter? MQA is essentially just adding garbage to a CD quality audio.
Damn that bad? I thought it was underrated, not completely useless. At least I didn't factor it into my dac choice.
On a powerful desktop machine, sure. But in embedded processors inside DACs, all kinds of shortcuts are taking to keep CPU load low. This usually causes numerical errors addition noise and distortion.Firstly there shouldn't be difference in decoding.
I do not.@amirm , you also think mqa is worthless and even worse than cd redbook?