 Does MQA work with Rune and my DAC? Will my title app offer me full MQA quality? If title sends me a 48 kHz file, does the MQA decoding do upsampling? Just a number of questions I get asked a lot. Time for some answers. MQA uses new insights in how we hear music to reduce the amount of data needed for high resolution audio. Weren't we told the same by Dolby? Dolby Digital, which uses lossy compression, should sound just as good as the original PCM signal. And it didn't, which is easily proven by the fact that we now have Dolby True HD. MP3 and AAC, also lossy compression schemes, are not identical to the original either. Whether you hear the difference depends on your equipment, your hearing capabilities en your listening environment. In a car at 130 kph, you probably won't hear the difference. And then came MQA, again three characters and again using lossy compression. So the tech purists condemned it, even without listening to it. For when you listen to it over a full MQA enabled system, you will know it often sounds even better than standard 24 bit 192 kHz PCM. Watch my video Is MQA lossless for more information, links at the usual places. Time for the questions. You can play MQA files on any device that can also play normal PCM files like WAV, FLAC, AIF and so on. What you get then is the quality equal to or better than the original 44.1 or 48 kHz 16 bit file. De quality kan be better, sinds usually the original master or a production master closest to the original master is used for the mastering of MQA. An MQA uses a filtering that repairs time smearing in the production equipment to some degree. Furthermore MQA promises to never offer up sampled files. If a master is at 44.1 kHz the MQA signal, even when using the full MQA decoding, is also 44.1 kHz. If the master is at a higher sampling frequency, like 96 or 192 kHz, non MQA equipment will see a 48 kHz file. But when you play it back over software that can do the core decoding, also called the first unfolding, you will get a signal up to 96 kHz if the original master was 96 kHz or higher. That signal can be sent to any non MQA DAC for conversion. That DAC will cause time smearing due to the reconstruction filter it applies, like it does with non MQA files. If you have a DAC that offers MQA rendering and the master was at a sampling rate higher than 96 kHz, the signal gets reconstructed to the original sampling frequency even if it is 384 kHz. There also is a provision that corrects the time smearing of that DAC. But since every DAC has its own time smearing fingerprint, the compensation circuit has to be specific for that type of DAC. Therefore software like Rune and Tidalplayer can never perform this last step. If you own a DAC that does both phases, you can even use normal non MQA player software or hardware like J River, Volumio, Squeezebox, yes even Linplayers to send a digital MQA file to a DAC that does both the MQA core decoding and rendering. You then get the same result as with the core decoding software plus an MQA rendering DAC. Of course with the limitations of their hardware used. So there are three groups of DACs. One, non MQA DACs. Two, MQA rendering DACs, that needs software to do the core decoding. And three, MQA DACs that do the core decoding and rendering. Hence there are four possibilities when playing MQA files. One, you have no MQA software or hardware. You can play MQA files as if they are normal 4.148 kHz files. Time smearing in the recording is corrected but time smearing in the DAC isn't. Two, you use player software that can do the MQA decoding like Tidalplayer or Rune and a non MQA DAC. You get an audio signal at the original sampling rate of the master up to 96 kHz. Dat kan be 44.1 kHz, maar ook 96 kHz, depending on the original master. Time smearing in the recording is compensated for, but you don't get the time smearing compensation appropriate for your DAC. Three, you use player software that can do the MQA core decoding like Tidalplayer or Rune and a DAC that can't decode but can render MQA signals. Both the recording and your DAC are time compensated for so you get the best quality an MQA file can offer on your equipment. Examples of MQA rendering only DACs are the AudioQuest Dragonfly DACs. Four, you use a DAC that is able to do both the MQA core decoding and rendering. Now your source, being a hardware streamer, a CD player or music player software on your computer, doesn't need to be MQA enabled. As long as it can send out a bit perfect signal to the MQA DAC, you will get the full MQA quality of the 384 kHz sampling, provided the master was 384 kHz and both the recording and your DAC are being compensated for. Then about the CD player. There are now MQA CDs as well, although I don't expect this to become very popular. Streamers dat are MQA enabled, normally have the core decoding done by its processor inside the streamer and then send it through an MQA module to the DAC chip. That MQA module is then optimized for that type of DAC chip. This is why the digital output of streamers often output the core decoded signal, meaning up to 96 kHz sampling. Roon uses this approach to offer all kinds of digital signal processing. Normaal sends Roon een bit perfect signal tot de endpoint, maar de user kan de volume tussen de tracks en albums uitleggen automatisch of heeft een equaliser gevoel om te compenseren voor shortcomings in de stereo of de acoustics. Het kan zelfs een sophisticated room correction doen met de impulsverstelling van de room om een room correcte audio signal te convoluten. Bevor Roon became MQA compatible, gebruiken DSP-technies zou de MQA-authenticatie kruppelen, zodat je met een 44.1 of 48 kHz signal zou komen. Maar sinds version 1.5 Roon kan niet alleen de core decoding doen, maar het kan alle kinds van DSP-functies aanbieden voordat de MQA-authenticatie is gegeven. Dit betekent dat de rendering DAC's de normale MQA-rendering doen, while the full MQA DAC's will recognize it receives an MQA core signal and thus will switch to rendering only. So now room correction, crossfading and volume leveling all became possible. MQA matters have been troubled somewhat by a loud minority that screamed hell and fury, but were very poorly informed. It was rumored that MQA is copy protected. Wrong, there is no copy protection in MQA. There never was and there never will be. I have this in writing from Bob Stewart, one of the two inventors. If I would mail you an MQA file, you would perfectly be able to play it back. Only the quality at which it is played back depends on your equipment. You can play it back on your phone, on the old 300 euro stereo in a box system, in the kitchen, that doesn't support MQA, and on a super duper MQA enabled stereo in your listening room. Try that with normal 96 kHz flag files. Tences are, the latter will only play in your listening room since the other two sets don't do 96 kHz. Another argument used against MQAs is that it is lossy, just like mp3. Incorrect, with mp3 the sound quality over the entire audio band is willingly decreased to achieve smaller file sizes. MQA uses lossless compression up to 45 kHz bandwidth and uses a different way of storing the information above 45 kHz. Furthermore, it uses bits that are not used through audio to store relevant information in. Pure technically, you could say that MQA is lossy above 45 kHz, but there is no relevant information above 45 kHz. The only reason to use higher sampling rates is to be able to use milder anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters. See my video is MQA lossless. There you will learn that when you consider the entire chain MQA potentially loses even less quality than normal PCM. Yes, there is a loud minority, mainly in the computer audio file community, that don't like systems other than public domain. But big steps like MQA offers can never be public domain. It took Linux 45 years to become more or less usable for the normal consumer. Final wasn't public, CD wasn't. SA CD wasn't and so on. If you are not sure about MQA, just listen to it. If you don't hear any improvement, just stick to the gear you have. And if you do hear an improvement, consider if it's worth the investment. Inform yourself, decide for yourself and don't let the loud minority decide for you. To stay informed, subscribe to this channel or follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. If you like this video, please consider supporting the channel through Patreon or PayPal. Any financial support is much appreciated and the links are in the comments. Help me to help even more people enjoy music at home by telling your friends on the web about this channel. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.