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Own 2 golds and am loving the sound. Mostly listen from Tidal through Air Play using Roon.
I really want to stream Tidal MQA version (using laptop). Do the phantoms support MQA? If so what do typical set ups look like?
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Airplay is a lossy transmission and will not pull out the full potential of Phantom. If you do not want to refuse using roon - better buy e.g. a Bluesound Node II and stream via optical cable from the Node II to Phantom/Dialog. MQA support via Tidal - Roon - Bluesound is already announced and will come soon. Devialet very likely will NOT directly support MQA - at least this is my information.
4 x Gold Phantom via LAN, 2 x Silver Phantom via LAN, Dialog, Remote, Tidal HiFi (Masters/MQA), Bluesound node II (TOS-link to Dialog, MQA), Roon (Mac)
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05-Apr-2018, 06:32
(This post was last modified: 05-Apr-2018, 06:41 by NevB.)
According to my research, I believe full MQA unfolding (up to 24bit/192kHz) to the Phantoms can only happen if Devialet support it directly by registering [aka licensing] the Phantom DAC with the MQA group.
Partial unfolding to the Phantoms is available now, up to 24bit/96kHz, via a number of ways including:
Tidal on a PC with a hirez optical out, connected directly to the Phantom
Roon on a PC with a hirez optical out, connected directly to the Phantom [I do this]
Roon on a PC streaming to a Roon Endpoint with a hirez optical out, connected directly to the Phantom [eg a SonicOrbiter]
Bluesound Vault or Node connected directly to the Phantom [these are also Roon endpoints]
Its worth repeating that not all optical ports are rated to 24/96 or 24/192, and some os [eg MacOS] need tweaking to support 24/192
Roon provides details on the signal path and bit rates which can help "debug" your efforts to get MQA partial unfolding working, but its a journey ... good luck!
Hope this helps
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Thanks for your opinion, everyone. I don't want this thread to turn into a debate on MQA... I think there are a plenty of other threads that discuss the MQA topic in depth. I personally don't care if I don't get the full MQA: I just want a better sound quality than what I can get from Airplay because I know my golds can handle much more than that. Having said that, I think I will go with Bluesound Node 2 and connect it directly to the dialog using optical. From what I've researched that offers the best bang for the buck.
My question is, if I did Laptop (Windows 10, probably Bluesound app and Tidal MQA) --(wifi)--> Bluesound Node 2 --(optical)--> dialog, and if I play a 24/192 track, what's the sound quality I will get? I couldn't find a crystal clear answer to this question. Note that I will not be using Roon since I understand the MQA support via Tidal - Roon - Bluesound is yet to come.