When I look into the ID-tags of these flac files, I can see that the tag ORIGINALSAMPLERATE (44100 or 48000) corresponds with the audio property "sample rate", which is always the same for these wELL working MQA tracks.
When I download a MQA96 album, like the Robert Plant album in the emailed log file, with my audio PC, it is like this:
the tag ORIGINALSAMPLERATE has the value 96000, what seems to be correct. But the sample rate of these flac files is 48KHz only. It should be 96KHz too, as I believe.
So Richard, ...
You never read those for me. Never adhere your own ideas about matters, or you will end up nowhere with it, OK ?
Apart from the "for me" which should read "from me" (apologies for this confusing line of text because of that), I tried to help you by means of now explicitly making what you thought could be observed in the first place.
So what actually happened is that you gave me the very good idea that no decoder is required to observe the Native (in-MQA) Sampling Rate, which finally avoids all the hassle about the Music Server PC seeing something different from the Audio PC just because on either of both the decoding does not work. So from of 2.10 it will be like this :
- The Hires Audio logo will emerge based on what the ORIGINALSAPLERATE tag in the FLAC file tells us (thus exactly how you looked yourself);
- The actual MQA Decoding will take place during Playback.
Let's try to keep in mind that the MQA Decoding during Playback is depending on two major data parts :
1. The HiRes Audio logo must be present on the Coverart (when no Coverart is present or (made) visible it's an internal thing, but this is rare anyway);
2. The PC where the Playback happens must be able to Decode MQA (and for some PC's this can be a pain and virtually unsolvable unless Windows is freshly installed (not upgraded !)).
Although not easy to see, the change is major. Why and how ?
Well, because the initial enumeration of the MQA albums is not depending on the MQA Decoding any more (it was in 2.09) only one thing can fail from of 2.10 : the decoding suring Playback. This means that we van be 100% guaranteed that if Playback fails to decode MQA, it is the Playback PC not being able to Decode MQA and nothing else.
How to check this unambiguously ? Most easy description (leaving out more possibilities) :
-> Find an album with HiRes Audio logo of 96, take care that your DAC can take 24/96 for input at least, play the file and observe that after decoding - hence when playback commences for real - the input to output in XXHighEnd shows 96000 - 96000 with the little fx button (sits in between inut and output bit rate) activated and the sampling rate slider (sits in between input and output sampling rate) at 2x.
Additionally I could say that each track which has been played once (briefly) or each album which has been Prepared explicitly, will from then on show the input and output as should even without playback. But better don't pay too much attention to this because it may confuse only.
What *is* important further, is that when you have proven that the 96 decodes, any 88.2 or 48 or 192 (native output is 96 max for real anyway) or whatever, will decode too.
It will NEVER happen that a 44.1 or 48 decodes, while 96 etc. does not (which could be your easy mistake to make).
Btw, I'd say that in all cases the MQA logo at the bottom (above the [ G ] button) will testify of MQA decoding. No MQA decoding means that the MQA logo (including green or blue indicator) will not show.
After some consensus (or earlier
) I will try to put this in a Tutorial (in the Tutorials section) as well.
Best regards,
Peter