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AudioQuest adds MQA Support to Dragonflies via firmware


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6 minutes ago, Wavelength said:

mansr,

 

So you are admitting you don't have a DragonFly, correct? Then why are you even commenting here?

Maybe I was thinking of getting one. After witnessing your behaviour here, I certainly won't be, that's for sure.

6 minutes ago, Wavelength said:

Actually the A7 has the same problems as the A5 does. With the MX DSP functions you can do a multiply and add which is a requirement for filtering in 1T state. On the A5/A7 processor that takes a ton more!

 

Thanks, but no thanks,

Gordon

Clearly you do not have even basic knowledge of ARM. Really, if you don't know, don't say anything. Better to remain silent and be suspected of ignorance than to speak and remove all doubt.

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7 minutes ago, mansr said:

Maybe I was thinking of getting one. After witnessing your behaviour here, I certainly won't be, that's for sure.

Clearly you do not have even basic knowledge of ARM. Really, if you don't know, don't say anything. Better to remain silent and be suspected of ignorance than to speak and remove all doubt.

 

Ah, don't get too upset at him - he is hamstrung by the boxed in world of IP/MQA no doubt.  He can only answer with generalities, and failing that accusations.

 

Did you notice how he complained of your "generalities" which lead to "confusion" and then says that "/A7 processor that takes a ton more!"?  What exactly is a "ton" in relation to MIPS and these questions? :)

 

Hope I am wrong, and some substantial answers to the specifics of AudioQuest's particular MQA implementation will be forthcoming...

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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12 minutes ago, crenca said:

Ah, don't get too upset at him - he is hamstrung by the boxed in world of IP/MQA no doubt.  He can only answer with generalities, and failing that accusations.

It's the baseless accusations and general rudeness I find unbecoming.

12 minutes ago, crenca said:

Did you notice how he complained of your "generalities" which lead to "confusion" and then says that "/A7 processor that takes a ton more!"?  What exactly is a "ton" in relation to MIPS and these questions? :)

Well, he explicitly mentioned multiply-and-add instructions. ARM happens to be much better equipped than MIPS in that regard.

12 minutes ago, crenca said:

Hope I am wrong, and some substantial answers to the specifics of AudioQuest's particular MQA implementation will be forthcoming...

I won't be holding my breath.

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What a bunch cackling whiners and LOL's why don't you all shut up and discuss something relevant important and interesting or better yet FUNNY/SARCASTIC. And if you don't understand medical jargon LOL means 'little old lady'. I for one can't wait to download/upload AQ's firmware to my new AQ DF RED.

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58 minutes ago, mansr said:

It's the baseless accusations and general rudeness I find unbecoming.

 

WOW - speaking of the pot calling the kettle black . . . 

 

Really, Gordon came in here to answer questions and comment on his *personal* knowledge of the code and hardware behind the DragonFlies, only to be met with hostility, accusations, and rudeness by people on the outside looking in.  No wonder he is a bit miffed.

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22 hours ago, miguelito said:

Can you explain a bit what happens in the DF once it receives the unfolded PCM stream? I see you replied to mansr so I am wondering what it actually is.

 

If you choose pass-through, then TIDAL won't be doing the first unfold I don't think - unless it still does it because it detects a DAC that has MQA rendering capabilities?

 

Yeap, A+ 3 is fabulous.

Agree A+3 and even ROON

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On April 20, 2017 at 3:54 PM, mrvco said:

 

With these headphones at least, I haven't found a song where I can loop a playlist of the non-MQA and MQA versions, get up from my desk and come back after some random period of time and tell which version is currently playing.  I didn't think of it until now, but I should get my SE535s out of my bag and try those... they are a 'bit' more revealing :)

 

The pass-thru setting didn't seem to make a difference, the lights on the E2 still light up just the same for any given song and no noticeable difference in SQ.

Mine are SE 598s HD and SE rs195s both to my almost 70 yo intact ears make MQA/non MQA  from either ME2 or DF RED sound spectacular great separation clarity and bass

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Okay, so based on the comments from this thread:

 

1. MQA is unfolded to 88/96 (i.e., first unfold) by the MQA-enabled player.

2. The MQA is streamed to the DFR's controller.

3. The controller sends the stream into the Sabre with some DSP values.

4. The stream goes into the Sabre's SRC stage for SDM conversion.

5. DSP values are applied before the output stage.

 

So, BASICALLY, the DFR ***DOES NOT*** unfold the the MQA stream to the master resolution.

 

Assumptions:

  • The controller doesn't perform any further unfolding of the MQA stream.
  • The Sabre doesn't perform any further unfolding prior to SRC.
  • DSP values are related to master ADC corrections.
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Hello, 

 

I have updated my DF red but am confused about the bitrate display colors.

 

I thought that any MQA flie should show blue, but my DF changes color according to the bitrate shown in Audirvana streaming Tidal Masters.

 

So should it shine Blue for every MQA file or does it follow the old bitrate color scheme?

 

Thanks!

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OKAY GUYS.

 

I just compared two tracks from the same album: Led Zeppelin (Deluxe Edition), VOLUME 1 TRACK 6: Black Mountain Side.

 

I have this album in 96/24 from HDTracks, and it's available as a Master in Tidal.

 

It seems clear to me that, playing the track from Roon (streaming from my dedicated audio PC, connected to the same router as my broadband modem), is clearly INFERIOR to the Tidal version. Since the DFR supports 96/24, the Master version shouldn't be any higher resolution. But it seems like the MQA version has more micro-details present, just a deeper insight into the guitar. It's as if a veil had been lifted, and it sounds more like I would expect high-resolution audio to sound. Is this the MQA source correction magic at work? Or am I just falling for a cheap EQ trick?

 

Here's the 96/24 file. What do YOU guys think???

 

06-Black Mountain Side.flac

 

 

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3 hours ago, Chel2772 said:

Hello, 

 

I have updated my DF red but am confused about the bitrate display colors.

 

I thought that any MQA flie should show blue, but my DF changes color according to the bitrate shown in Audirvana streaming Tidal Masters.

 

So should it shine Blue for every MQA file or does it follow the old bitrate color scheme?

 

Thanks!

The Dragonfly should look (Purple) if your getting MQA

 

21 hours ago, citsur86 said:

Ah never mind - I see the Dragonfly Red can only go up to 96,000Hz, though I could have sworn that I read the update would open it up to 192,000Hz for MQA....

 

Anyways I can see the difference between "Purple" and Magenta when I turn the lights off.

 

MQA Purple

IMG_4141.thumb.JPG.b1843c7e52cbbe4f985389ba6b5b3831.JPG

 

96,000Hz Manually set for lower bitrate output music.

IMG_7736.thumb.JPG.1b0f00348679a79f6fe932a6a8975691.JPG

 

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23 hours ago, ShawnC said:

Unfortunately with the Dragonfly it's hard to figure out what exactly your getting.  It would help if Tidal listed what it was sending you if you could unfold it to it's maximum potential.  I think something like Audirvana shows this and the Mytech Brooklyn DAC does this too.

If Audio MIDI says that DF is operating at 88 or 96, then the MQA file has been unfolded and the DF should render the file properly. However, you don't know what the final resolution will be - it depends on the original MQA file.

 

Audirvana reads the MQA metadata properly and will spell it like it is, telling you exactly what is happening.

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1 hour ago, Chel2772 said:

I think it has to do with my internet speed.  If it's too slow it won't stream the MQA. but if I let it load, and then play the light goes purple.  Downside of intrenet in central Africa...

Nah. If you pick an MQA file, for example:

 

https://tidal.com/album/2400318

 

You should be able to play properly. There's no downsampling happening, and there's no "switching to non-MQA version when bandwidth is not enough" as far as I know.

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7 hours ago, Chel2772 said:

Hello, 

 

I have updated my DF red but am confused about the bitrate display colors.

 

I thought that any MQA flie should show blue, but my DF changes color according to the bitrate shown in Audirvana streaming Tidal Masters.

 

So should it shine Blue for every MQA file or does it follow the old bitrate color scheme?

 

Thanks!

 

Chell2772,

 

As I stated above in my post the standard DragonFly colors apply to sample rates. When the DragonFly goes to purple it is playing back via MQA.

 

If you are having a problem with getting it to purple a couple  of things maybe happening:

 

1) Check to see you have a HiFi / Master account in Tidal->Settings->Streaming:

2) Make sure you have version 1.06 DragonFly. You can run the Device Manager again and it will tell you that and serial number and other stuff.

 

Thanks,

Gordon

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10 hours ago, GUTB said:

Okay, so based on the comments from this thread:

 

1. MQA is unfolded to 88/96 (i.e., first unfold) by the MQA-enabled player.

2. The MQA is streamed to the DFR's controller.

3. The controller sends the stream into the Sabre with some DSP values.

4. The stream goes into the Sabre's SRC stage for SDM conversion.

5. DSP values are applied before the output stage.

 

So, BASICALLY, the DFR ***DOES NOT*** unfold the the MQA stream to the master resolution.

 

Assumptions:

  • The controller doesn't perform any further unfolding of the MQA stream.
  • The Sabre doesn't perform any further unfolding prior to SRC.
  • DSP values are related to master ADC corrections.

 

No not correct....

 

First off why does everyone feel like there is upsampling involved here? Also the ESS Sabre DAC is only doing it's normal job with standard PCM using minimum phase filters. Each MQA track has it's own set of filters which are then setup in the ESS DAC chip for MQA.

 

MQA does an unfold with the DragonFly processor then sends that to the ESS DAC chip with now the custom filter for that song.

 

~~~

 

Other MQA products may work differently... say the DAC chip does not allow the downloading of custom filters. Then that product would have to assume the responsibility of doing those custom filters in the main processor. This would require a much faster (and more current hungry) processor to do this.

 

The DragonFly is optimized for power so that it will work on all platforms. With this in mind MQA and AudioQuest (and me) came up with this idea which takes advantage of the DragonFly system without sacrificing power usage.

 

Thanks,

Gordon

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6 hours ago, GUTB said:

OKAY GUYS.

 

I just compared two tracks from the same album: Led Zeppelin (Deluxe Edition), VOLUME 1 TRACK 6: Black Mountain Side.

 

I have this album in 96/24 from HDTracks, and it's available as a Master in Tidal.

 

It seems clear to me that, playing the track from Roon (streaming from my dedicated audio PC, connected to the same router as my broadband modem), is clearly INFERIOR to the Tidal version. Since the DFR supports 96/24, the Master version shouldn't be any higher resolution. But it seems like the MQA version has more micro-details present, just a deeper insight into the guitar. It's as if a veil had been lifted, and it sounds more like I would expect high-resolution audio to sound. Is this the MQA source correction magic at work? Or am I just falling for a cheap EQ trick?

 

Here's the 96/24 file. What do YOU guys think???

 

06-Black Mountain Side.flac

 

 

GUTB,

 

Thanks, I would agree with your assessment.

 

Do remember everyone what MQA is about and the lowering of the noise floor. If you look at the MQA site you can see how more of the music is going to be revealed by removing the unwanted noise associated with the track.

 

Some of the real early stuff is stunning to hear in MQA. The other nice thing is the MQA Masters library is not limited to audiophile tracks. There is a ton of stuff for everyone to listen too.

 

I would again suggest for MAC users to also try out the new Audirvana 3.0, Damien did a great job on that and it allows MQA and Tidal users a great experience.

 

Thanks,

Gordon

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58 minutes ago, Wavelength said:

GUTB,

 

Thanks, I would agree with your assessment.

 

Do remember everyone what MQA is about and the lowering of the noise floor. If you look at the MQA site you can see how more of the music is going to be revealed by removing the unwanted noise associated with the track.

 

Some of the real early stuff is stunning to hear in MQA. The other nice thing is the MQA Masters library is not limited to audiophile tracks. There is a ton of stuff for everyone to listen too.

 

I would again suggest for MAC users to also try out the new Audirvana 3.0, Damien did a great job on that and it allows MQA and Tidal users a great experience.

 

Thanks,

Gordon

 

Can you point me to some specifics on lowering noise (in the process of remastering for MQA, I assume?) on the MQA site?  And can you recommend a few tracks/albums that you are referring to in terms of "some of the early stuff"?

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3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Can you point me to some specifics on lowering noise (in the process of remastering for MQA, I assume?) on the MQA site?  And can you recommend a few tracks/albums that you are referring to in terms of "some of the early stuff"?

GUTB,

 

You can find that information on the MQA site. It explains how MQA works.

 

http://www.mqa.co.uk/

 

Thanks,

Gordon

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11 minutes ago, Wavelength said:

GUTB,

 

You can find that information on the MQA site. It explains how MQA works.

 

http://www.mqa.co.uk/

 

Thanks,

Gordon

 

I'm not him, but thanks. :)

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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5 hours ago, Chel2772 said:

Ok, wonder why I am not getting the purple light even when streaming Masters and with the update to DF red showing as succesful?

 

After you've gone to TIDAL Settings, have selected the Streaming header, and then selected the Dragonfly Red DAC, hover your cursor over the DAC's name and a gear wheel will appear.  Click on the gear wheel and another menu will appear.  Select "Exclusive" mode and you should be in business.  If you have a mac, don't select "Force Full Volume" unless you want to damage your headphones. 

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36 minutes ago, CNoblet said:

After you've gone to TIDAL Settings, have selected the Streaming header, and then selected the Dragonfly Red DAC, hover your cursor over the DAC's name and a gear wheel will appear.  Click on the gear wheel and another menu will appear.  Select "Exclusive" mode and you should be in business.  

Correct. DO NOT select "MQA pass-through" as in principle this should not unfold, which is required for the DF. I can't recall if TIDAL will actually ignore this setting with a DF, but just to be sure don't choose that.

 

36 minutes ago, CNoblet said:

If you have a mac, don't select "Force Full Volume" unless you want to damage your headphones. 

This is correct, but it needs a bit of explanation as in most cases people are instructed to use this setting.

 

For many (most?) DACs, the volume control on the mac/pc will change the PCM stream by applying the volume reduction in software before it reaches the DAC. This will destroy the MQA encoding. Enabling "Force Full Volume" guarantees the PCM stream will not be altered, but obviously will require that you have a volume control at the DAC or preamp.

 

For the DF, the computer's volume control actually controls the DAC itself, it does not change the PCM stream reaching the DAC, just sends instructions over USB on what volume to set the DF at (*). This is actually a great feature of the DF in my opinion.

 

(*) The DF Black actually has a USB-controlled analog volume control (applied on the final analog stage) whereas the Red does this digitally in the DAC chip.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

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