OK about the MQA part, I figured out what is happening but this does not mean what is happening is correct or incorrect. I simply do not know.
So let me explain what is happening now. In Kandace Springs "The Women Who Raised Me". Everything works to plan. When all the appropriate settings are done, we get MQA and a 96Khz sample rate. When we choose HiFi, the sample rate drops and the screen displays PCM as I would expect. The settings of pass through seems to not matter. So fine everything good so far.
Now when we choose the Stacey Kent's" I Know I Dream" which is also listed as Master according to Tidal, With the MQA settings, we get MQA on the D90SE screen but we only get a sample rate of 44.1. Now when we try to switch to PCM by choosing the settings that worked with Kandace Spring's album, the screen retains MQA. Even when we choose choose different Passthrough settings, the same data is listed on the screen of the D90SE.
So what is the deal, is Stacey's Kent's album a fake MQA? Or is it a variation of MQA? If it is the latter why does the not D90SE respond properly. I should get PCM with some setting of the four possible. I don't know if the issue is with Tidal or it is with the Topping D90SE. Until someone else has another MQA decoder that is working properly, I won't know.
Thus far, either Tidal's app ( fully updated Sept 18 2021) is messed up or The D90SE is not responding properly to the MQA or Non MQA instructions. in the stream.
As for the USB issues, I have spent hours trying to decipher what is going on. These are my conclusions so far and still not totally conclusive. It appears that on my particular PC, the quality of the USB output is different. When I use the ports on the MB header, I get more dropouts. I get superior results by using a port through the USB headers and through an extending cable to the rear of the PC. I have had results the opposite on printers before where the most trouble free data transmission was directly from the headers as compared to an extension of expansion card. I cannot conclude but the D90SE I have is exhibiting USB issues where previously my Khadas Tone Board and another DAC using an XMOS and XING adapter had no issues.
For my sample, I am seeing two issues what is causing it, I don't know.