Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA

[GuillaumeB]

I own a Meridian Explorer2 as well and I just assumed the disparity was due to the fact that it's not a world class DAC -- far from it. It's an ok portable DAC but I assume it doesn't reclock etc. Also you will be hearing a lot more USB based rubbish on that DAC unless you've taken care to avoid it.

When I first heard MQA at a Bluesound demo last year in Dublin I loved the natural "LP" like feel to the sound. The imaging was fantastic even though the timbre of instruments changed little. Rhythm was good too. 

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The improvement is big enough that I think sooner rather than later Devialet will be obliged to include MQA decoding notwithstanding their "Not invented here" stance heretofore. 

Bob Stuart is right - MQA is an important step towards perfecting "digital" sound.

What I found encouraging was how much the sound improved on the explorer2 when fed MQA versus even hi-res 24/192 PCM - the output quality jumped up to a much higher level. This suggests to me that lower cost DACs will see an even greater benefit with MQA than the high end stuff.

I had a very similar experience back in 2015 when testing MQA on a mid level Meridian setup (DSP 5200 speakers if I recall, can't remember the rest). When playing MQA material it sounded decent, without it it was pretty poor. I remember thinking exactly the same thing. With MQA it just sounded much more natural. 

Guillaume