Quote:
Originally Posted by Puma Cat
HI Toga,
Your findings were consistent with my understanding as well; most "streamers" only pass data (music files) from the server to the DAC without any D/A conversion, so if you want support for specific file classes, e.g DSD or MQA, a DAC that supports that specific conversion is required.
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So when we see “MQA Support”. We must dig deep to see
Why it is called so.
Now I know more after lots of reading.
There are three types of handling MQA, so when manufacturer say MQA support, we have to know what kind of support between.
- Pass Thru, can let MQA pass thru, but dont do any benefit.
- Core decoder , which expand FLAC lower sampling rate to
Something higher sampling rate, this step is important. And can still be decoded by std. DAC that accept these high sampling rate.
- Renderer will do the final expansion again
With something that can do everything it is called as Full
Decoder.
Moon 780D V2 is claimed to be full decoder. But it doesn’t seem to have a mandatory blue/green light to confirm studio approved status. Which is kinda weird for a DAC said to be Full MQA Decoder.
While MiND2 streamer and Auralic Streamer just can pass thru MQA untouched.
Something like Berkeley Ref DAC is just a renderer, it required something before it to do the important Core Decoding.