So I'm experiencing some issues with the D70s while playing MQA from Tidal. I have it connected via USB directly to a Windows 10 machine running the Tidal desktop app (Also tried USB to a Raspberry Pi 3+ running Volumio). For some odd reason, when I play a 'master' track I either get 44.1khz or 96khz most of the time or 192khz on the rare occasion, but never 48khz or 88.2khz.... The DAC shows MQA on the OLED display but everything labelled 'master' should give me at least 48khz, 88.2khz, 92khz or 192khz.
I can't figure out what's wrong, even with my DX7s I can get 48khz or 88.2khz with the Tidal software decoding.
I have the passthrough MQA setting turned on, the newest 1.30 firmware on the D70s and the latest drivers.
Any help would be appreciated!
It's only because there not so many albums mixed/mastered with these formats, but there are some :
88.2 kHz
48 kHz (album is mixed, 48 and 44.1 depending on who mixed each song)
As a general rule, core decoder (done by the app if Passthrough is off, or the DAC if on) will double the MQA file sample rate, even if the original master had 44.1 or 48 kHz sample rate.
Then, rendering if needed for orginal master with more than 96 kHz SR is done by the DAC to increase the sample rate up to the original one.
There's no content decoded and added as the MQA encoding has low pass filter at 96 kHz max (so max audio content is 48 kHz).
MQA 16/44.1 (that are replacing 16/44.1 FLAC on the HiFi setting, without them specify it) - decoding -> 24/88.2 stream
MQA 24/44.1 - decoding 24/44.1 -> 24/88.2 stream
MQA 24/48 - decoding 24/48 -> 24/96 stream
MQA 24/88.2 - decoding 24/44.1 -> 24/88.2 stream
MQA 24/96 - decoding 24/48 -> 24/96 stream
MQA 24/176.4 - decoding 24/44.1 -> 24/88.2 stream -> rendering to 24/176.4
MQA 24/192 - decoding 24/48 -> 24/96 stream -> rendering to 24/192
MQA 24/356.8 - decoding 24/44.1 -> 24/88.2 stream -> rendering to 24/356.8
MQA 24/384 - decoding 24/48 -> 24/96 stream -> rendering to 24/384 (never saw this last format on Tidal)
just so we are doing that same on the Tidal App the third row "Passthrough MQA" slider is slid to the right and is lilac in colour?
TBH, most of what is rendered on the MQA is outputting at 441kHz.
No, the DAC is showing the SR of the original master that was used to create to MQA file, not the SR once the MQA file was processed by the app/DAC