H Berkeley πρόσθεσε MQA rendering στο Alpha DAC! Τημ μιση δουλεια καλείται να την κανει το streamer/ software, την αλλη μισή το DAC. Ενδιαφέρουσα προσθήκη για οσους θελουν MQA (και έχουν 20Κ ζεστά ζεστά)
When Berkeley researched MQA and decided to add MQA to its products, Berkeley planned from the start to build an outboard device that would perform the MQA Core unfolding step outside the DAC chassis. Although the Alpha DAC Reference Series had enough spare memory and processing power to incorporate full MQA decoding within the chassis, Berkeley wouldn’t compromise the Alpha DAC Reference Series’ performance by adding this computationally intensive step. Berkeley planned to build its own Core unfolding device because at the time, MQA insisted that all MQA-compatible DACs be full decoders that perform all unfolding and rendering steps in the DAC. But in January, 2017 MQA changed course and allowed the Core unfolding in music-player software. This obviated the need for Berkeley to build its own outboard Core unfolding device.
That left Berkeley with the job of implementing MQA rendering in the Alpha DAC Reference Series in a way that wouldn’t add noise and compromise the oscillator performance. All MQA licensees are given the rendering code by MQA in a computer language called C++, which the licensee incorporates into its product. Pflaumer, however, rewrote the MQA code in assembly language to reduce the number of processor cycles required. In the process of rewriting the code and incorporating MQA’s rendering software with its own code, Pflaumer went back to first principles and rewrote the entire software. He used the opportunity to take a fresh look at every aspect of the code and discovered ways to make the Alpha DAC Reference Series even better sounding. (Thus the reason for my Picasso quote that begins this review.) As you can read in the review, this new software for the Alpha DAC Reference Series not only adds MQA rendering, it realizes an astonishing improvement in the sound of conventional PCM sources.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/article ... ies-2-mqa/