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  #11  
Old 02-03-2017, 03:48 PM
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Paul recently posted on their forum with an update regarding MQA support on their DS DAC. He said that initially he considered it a non-starter since MQA was requiring the decoding to be performed at the DAC and that compromised the performance of their FPGA design. Now that MQA is allowing the decoding to be done before the DAC they have an implementation which is viable and works well when streaming into their Bridge.
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  #12  
Old 02-21-2017, 02:24 PM
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Audio Bill,
Thanks for the info. Makes sense to do the conversion from MQA to "regular" PCM, then feed that into the DirectStream DAC. If that's what Paul has in mind, I guess I'll be ordering a BridgeII for my DAC!
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  #13  
Old 02-25-2017, 10:05 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by audio bill View Post
Paul recently posted on their forum with an update regarding MQA support on their DS DAC. He said that initially he considered it a non-starter since MQA was requiring the decoding to be performed at the DAC and that compromised the performance of their FPGA design. Now that MQA is allowing the decoding to be done before the DAC they have an implementation which is viable and works well when streaming into their Bridge.
I think what PS Audio is working on is a software update to their "Bridge II Network Audio Card", which one would slide into the slot on their DAC. I had an exchange with Robert Harley from The Absolute Sound, and from that I think this software update would do the "unfolding" of the MQA stream, up to 96/24. What this update would not do is the is the "full end-to-end MQA" decoding. So I suspect that the result would be an MQA stream processed by the "Bridge II" would be higher resolution, but would not have the "deblurring" benefits of MQA.
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  #14  
Old 02-25-2017, 09:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ejr1953 View Post
I think what PS Audio is working on is a software update to their "Bridge II Network Audio Card", which one would slide into the slot on their DAC. I had an exchange with Robert Harley from The Absolute Sound, and from that I think this software update would do the "unfolding" of the MQA stream, up to 96/24. What this update would not do is the is the "full end-to-end MQA" decoding. So I suspect that the result would be an MQA stream processed by the "Bridge II" would be higher resolution, but would not have the "deblurring" benefits of MQA.
After reading Paul's more recent posts on MQA I believe you are entirely correct, that the software decoding in the Bridge II will be MQA Core only.
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Old 03-02-2017, 03:33 PM
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If anyone is interested is a killer deal on a DirectStream, please check out my post in the marketplace.
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  #16  
Old 03-12-2017, 07:29 AM
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It's done. See my post in a separate thread (because I couldn't find this one), but MQA is coming to the Bridge II in April, for free.
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  #17  
Old 03-14-2017, 02:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Weirdcuba View Post
It's done. See my post in a separate thread (because I couldn't find this one), but MQA is coming to the Bridge II in April, for free.
...and from that other posting:

From what I understand, PS Audio is working on a software upgrade for their Bridge2 which will do the unfolding, same sort of thing that is an option on the Tidal desktop app. That will "unfold" the content to a maximum of 96/24.

But to my way of thinking, the real benefit of MQA is the "de-blurring" which would require changes to the internals of the DAC, which PS Audio is not willing to do.
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  #18  
Old 03-14-2017, 03:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ejr1953 View Post
...and from that other posting:

From what I understand, PS Audio is working on a software upgrade for their Bridge2 which will do the unfolding, same sort of thing that is an option on the Tidal desktop app. That will "unfold" the content to a maximum of 96/24.

But to my way of thinking, the real benefit of MQA is the "de-blurring" which would require changes to the internals of the DAC, which PS Audio is not willing to do.
I believe that your understanding is correct!
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  #19  
Old 03-15-2017, 11:07 AM
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"UNCLE"

I really enjoy the MQA I've experienced from Tidal, have over 100 albums in my "favorites"...so, I ordered a Mytek Brooklyn MQA DAC.

I suspect with the addition of Universal Music to the MQA source lineup that the DAC manufacturers will need to come out with models that do "end-to-end" MQA decoding, to be successful.

I also suspect that DAC chip companies like ESS will likely build the MQA decoding into future offerings, so that DAC manufacturers which use off-the-shelf DAC chipsets will have good options for their future models, and that their designs won't need to go thru the MQA Company certification process.

Paul & Ted are very astute and very smart people. I also suspect that they will eventually adapt their designs to do end-to-end MQA decoding, so I'll be keeping my DirectStream DAC, as I find it sounds awesome decoding "regular" AIFF & FLAC files and hope, if they join the MQA decoding world, that it'll be in the form of a motherboard swap for this excellent DAC.
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  #20  
Old 03-20-2017, 12:14 AM
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I wonder which Colorado mountain they will name it after this time around

To the folks here who are using PS Audio DACs with bridge etc, is it mandatory to run everything via JRiver and/or Roon? Or is it possible to maybe use another programme if needs being? Not the biggest fan of JRMC SQ wise plus it tends to shut down on me almost on a daily basis.
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