[ejr1953]

Last night I had some time to do some compares, Tidal Windows desktop app, MQA --> Meridian Explorer2 DAC with "MQA passthru" set on the app vs. MQA --> PS Audio DirectStream DAC with "MQA passthru" un-checked on the app. I suspect the latter does the "unfolding" (as the PS Audio DAC shows higher res stats on the display), but not the "de-blurring" that the MQA technology offers. In every case the Explorer2 DAC sounded better, often times much better.

I've checked out the forums on the PS Audio website and the impression I get is that the technology used in the DirectStream DAC is not one that PS Audio can easily adapt, to add MQA. Having said that, Paul has been really "quiet" on the subject of MQA for the last several weeks. He's a smart business man, so I suspect he's exploring options now.

I was reading on the Mytek website about the new ManhattanII DAC, how it uses an "off the shelf" ESS DAC chip. Not being an engineer, I'm wondering if Mytek places some "MQA hardware" in front of that ESS chip, to do the "de-blurring" and "unfolding" of the MQA stream, feeding the result into the ESS chip? If that were the case, I suspect that PS Audio could do something similar, which might require that DirectStream DAC owners replace the main system board in their units.

I must say, I'm really happy with the way the DirectStream DAC handles "non-MQA" inputs, and I really really like the way that it's able to be improved with firmware updates. I hope Paul's recent silence is an indicator that he's tinkering with some options.