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If PCM and MQA are equal in audible sound quality, which has the worst processor load for penalty for decoding? With and without MQA hardware? I always listened to Tidal with the Windows App, does that give the full "unfolding"? Or do you have to invest in MQA hardware to get the best out of MQA?
I know these are elementary questions, but I'm more confused as this goes on...
Tidal app, Roon etc can all do the core decode (the first one) to 24/96 or 24/88. The render to 192 etc needs to be done on hardware (the dac basically) or, you can set the software to leave the file alone and pass to a "full" mqa dac which will do the core then render.
From what I have gleaned here, that rendering stage is little more than upsampling.
I think I have that the right way round but it's a bit of a minefield
EDIT- its worth pointing out what when I last used Tidal MQA (a year or so ago) - the majority of MQA files topped out at 24/96 so would be "fully decoded" within the core Tidal app/ Roon and wouldnt need an MQA stickered DAC at all. This is a factor that seems to be overlooked when talking about a hardware "tax" . One is pointed towards such devices when in reality, the amount of content that can be rendered to 24/192 isnt (wasnt?) huge.
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