Hi Peter,
It's been 2 years since last post on this topic. But I find it interesting. In Tidal MQA, I found this fine vintage album. To my ear, it needs IPhase ON. It would be great to hear others opinion.
Best,
ZH

https://tidal.com/album/77641992

Hi Peter,
I have a separate question regarding playback's soft fade-in at the beginning of a track. It is a general issue, not specific to MQA. Many times the very beginning of first track is slightly cut off by soft fade-in. It drives me crazy. Because it makes the song sound like "testing" track, not a perfect presentation. Any way to fine adjust the starting point?

Best,
Zheng 

I did notice that with NormalizeVolume on, it takes some time to load the first time you play an album. With MQA tracks on top of that, it does seem very long time. But this may not be Arvind's situation...
ZH

Thanks, Peter,
Here is a link to a technical paper of the topology of my iFi iDAC2 just in case you do have extra time to waste:

https://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/data/iDAC2%20-%20Spilling%20the%20Sauce%20(2%20of%206)_%209%20Nov%202015.pdf

 

Peter, you're a good man!
First I feel guilty of spending your time and energy from your crazy busy life (judging from insane amount of stuff you have to deal with...) Your points are helpful and will guide me to carefully tread through the treacherous path of MQA AB tests. Couple of points to clarify:

1. Yes, iFi's implementation of LED scheme is totally unconventional and has nothing to do with MQA's proposed scheme (blue/green). In fact iFi's schemes are not even consistent between their own products -- their OFFICIAL MQA light is magenta with no mention of how to indicate MQA's blue/green lights. But on my iFi iDAC2 it is white because there's no magenta color LED on some legacy products. In short, iFi has one LED to indicate whether its a MQA stream or not.

2. My iFi iDAC2 DOES have a switch setting called "bit perfect" which according to iFi is NON Upsampling. But it still needs software MQA to decode first (either by Tidal desktop or XXHE as a 88 or 96 stream)

3. As a comparison I want to try to let XXHE decode MQA with all filters OFF and volume at 0 dBFS.

4. Can you tell me which are XXHE filter buttons. I know Arc Prediction or Custom is one. Anything else?

Keep it short, 

Best,
Zheng

Hi Richard,
This is so enticing! But again Tidal USA does not have this album. Could you send me a link to try again? Looks like I need to look into VPN to load up Tidal UK or something...

Keep on sending me new recommendations of music.

Best,
Zheng

Hi Peter,
First I must say that your reply #1 is both fascinating and complicated. I think I am beginning to feel more clarified and appreciate the process of "deblur". But I am still digesting... Here are some of my observations/questions:

1. If deblur is realised when MQA track is decoded (by XXHE for example), does rendering process in a MQA DAC adds anything more (maybe "blurring" to correct over-deblurring, as you suggested) to the deblur information? I am asking this because I do hear something distinctively different when my MQA enabled iFi DAC lights up the white light which indicates a MQA track is being processed -- a darker background behind female vocal which adds more air and expressiveness, and bass is tighter and more involved. -------

2. This is interesting observation: white light (MQA) on iFi DAC2 only lights up in these 2 conditions in my current setup: A) XXHE decodes, volume 0dB, 96=96 or 88=88, filters like Arc Prediction or custom ON. Or B) Tidal decodes, Full control of DAC, Passthrough OFF. If you switch off XXHE decode or Tidal decode, white light shuts off (meaning non-MQA track)

What it tells me is that iFi DAC2 in current form only performs rendering. That is why no 192 or higher playback is possible yet as result of "unfolding".

3. This leads to my question that what is "rendering" entails? Add filters of course? Is it an integral part of the whole time domain process? IF so, without a true MQA DAC, we are only partially enjoy the benefit of deblur? Or better yet--by carefully using appropriate filters settings in XXHE, we can achieve the whole glory of most transient time-corrected results as intended by original studio MQA encoder?!
This is certainly encouraging but I am still yet to find filters settings that will make non-MQA DAC present a similar result when the "while light" lits up on MQA DAC. But again it is subtle and can be very subjective.
Excuse my very long mumbling

Best,
ZH

Thanks, Richard. But Tidal says "The content is no longer available." after I clicked the link. You have another way? Maybe dropbox?
Best,
Zheng

This sounds fascinating to me! I love to hear the difference. But the strange thing is that I can't find this album in MQA format on Tidal. Is it because I am located in the states? Maybe you guys can send me a link?
Thanks,
Zheng

Peter,
FYI.
I just forwarded the response from MQA to iFi tech team. Here is what I told them:

Peter,
I just received response from MQA regarding strange behavior of Tital/iFi combo that we have discussed. It again confirmed that the confusion we feel is legitimate! Here it is:
ZH

Peter,
This is strictly FYI. I got response from iFi regardiing Tidal-->iFi-DAC MQA decoding issue. Their answers in bold. I think it's a dead end as far as iFi tech support is concerned...  ZH

Hi Arvind & Peter,
Out of curiosity I downloaded this album and played each track. I found no issues at all--all played with a 96 on input and MQA logo on with blue corner. Now I'm playing entire album unattended, it's still going strong. A delete and re-download might fix the problem for Arvind.

Nice album by the way. I remember I might have an old LP sitting in my wife's collection from college time.

ZH

To further annoy me is the fact that I also bought iFi USB power supply to work with iDAC2 so it does not draw power from PC's USB bus. The power supply is even capable of separating USB data and power with a USB Y cable. All their rhetoric does not make me feel confident about the company.
ZH

Hi Peter,
This is just FYI. I just posted more questions to iFi technician.


Here is the video instruction that iFi is sending to everybody:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rMsoORSbw