25-Dec-2020, 21:02
The Devialet provides no MQA support and I believe the default setting in Roon's configuration should be that rather than "Renderer Only" which is the current s setting.
The original MQA stream contains data for 2 MQA processing steps. If you enable the MQA Core Decoder, Roon will do the first of those 2 processing steps which is the main one, but the second step can't be done by Roon. If you set the MQA Capability setting to "Renderer Only", Roon passes the rest of the MQA data to the Devialet for the Devialet to do the second step processing but the Devialet actually has no MQA capabilities so it simply ignores the MQA data. If you set the MQA Capability Setting to "No MQA Support", Roon strips the remaining MQA data from the stream it passes to the Devialet. Either way, the second processing step isn't done, Roon does the first processing step, and you hear exactly the same result.
In the Signal Path data you will see exactly what you report. If you set the MQA Support setting to Renderer Only, the signal path info tells you that Roon is sending the 96/24 data with MQA data for the second processing step. If you set MQA support to No MQA support, the signal path info tells you that Roon is sending the 96/24 data without the MQA data for the second processing step which the Devialet cannot do anyway.
The default MQA Support setting of "Renderer Only" is wrong, the default should be "No MQA Support". Whichever setting you use makes a small difference in Roon's processing but that will make no difference at all to what you hear. The end result of the Devialet receiving MQA data it ignores and the Devialet not receiving that data is simply that nothing happens with the data for the second processing step, it isn't used. Either Roon ignores it and "throws it away" or the Devialet receives it and ignores it but either way that last bit of MQA data doesn't get used. The first processing step, the one Roon does when you enable the MQA Core Decoder, is the main processing step and delivers most of the benefit of MQA.
The original MQA stream contains data for 2 MQA processing steps. If you enable the MQA Core Decoder, Roon will do the first of those 2 processing steps which is the main one, but the second step can't be done by Roon. If you set the MQA Capability setting to "Renderer Only", Roon passes the rest of the MQA data to the Devialet for the Devialet to do the second step processing but the Devialet actually has no MQA capabilities so it simply ignores the MQA data. If you set the MQA Capability Setting to "No MQA Support", Roon strips the remaining MQA data from the stream it passes to the Devialet. Either way, the second processing step isn't done, Roon does the first processing step, and you hear exactly the same result.
In the Signal Path data you will see exactly what you report. If you set the MQA Support setting to Renderer Only, the signal path info tells you that Roon is sending the 96/24 data with MQA data for the second processing step. If you set MQA support to No MQA support, the signal path info tells you that Roon is sending the 96/24 data without the MQA data for the second processing step which the Devialet cannot do anyway.
The default MQA Support setting of "Renderer Only" is wrong, the default should be "No MQA Support". Whichever setting you use makes a small difference in Roon's processing but that will make no difference at all to what you hear. The end result of the Devialet receiving MQA data it ignores and the Devialet not receiving that data is simply that nothing happens with the data for the second processing step, it isn't used. Either Roon ignores it and "throws it away" or the Devialet receives it and ignores it but either way that last bit of MQA data doesn't get used. The first processing step, the one Roon does when you enable the MQA Core Decoder, is the main processing step and delivers most of the benefit of MQA.
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