I just bought this same DAC, and have successfully used Tidal Connect to play MQA files. (the green led lit up), so it should be possible.
BTW, Volumio doesn’t show ‘MQA’ anywhere. I only know because of the green led on the ifi DAC.
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But on the manual says that green ir red book, MQA is magenta.
Thanks for the help, yes is in the fixed position and I tried both a usb 2.0 and 3.0 cable from the Raspberry to the DAC with no success. Volume at 100 all the time
Not in the manual I have.
Green=MQA
Blue= MQA Studio
Magneta=MQB (I think this mean software has already done the first unfold)
Your talking about the recently released Zen DAC v2 right?
Sorry, sorry, I am so stupid. I do not know where did I read that information. I just downloaded the manual from iFi and you are right. Thanks a lot, you have been of great help. You have saved me from hours of work and frustration.
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Thanks to Xhorder i just found out I was wrong, the DAC is working fine. thanks a lot for your help and prompt response.
Hey, it’s a new dac, no need for apologies. You have it set up correctly and now know the meanings of the different colors. Enjoy.
I have the Gustard X16 too, playing through an asus tinkerboard via usb. When I play 192Khz hi res tracks they show correctly on the Gustard as MQA 192, but in the display in Volumio 2.878 they show as 48Khz 24bit. I was thinking its just a software glitch. Sounds good to my old ears!
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I have the same setup! Works perfect!
I am not sure if you compare apples and apples. You talk about MQA files properly unfolded. Did you actually try this? I did. And even before the time of MQA I tested what makes the biggest impact:
- oversampling (48 against 192 khz for example)
- 16 against 24 bit.
The second makes usually the bigger difference. As far as I know the basic NOT unfolded MQA Master files are 24 bit anyway, so they sound very well to start with (provided that the base studio recording was on a good level). Did you maybe compare to NON Master files of 16 bit?
I agree the 16 bit files sound usually worse than their equivalents.
But then to add even more confusion :)… Listen for example to a Porcupine tree song “Rainy taxi”. 16 bit" sounding as if “24 bit”.
I have Roon too and if you avoid jitter coming from optical or usb connections (or use a good decrapifier) I do not believe it can technically be much better. You have always some colouring of sound that people tend to prefer and then they say it sounds “better”. Personally I think you also have to get used to a sound as well. It is still an artificial reproduction which your brain tries to imagine.