PCM vs DSD vs MQA — what your DAC actually does
Every digital audio file you play falls into one of three families. They differ in how they represent the analog waveform — and that representation determines what your DAC has to do to reconstruct it.
Linear PCM
Pulse-code modulation: regular time-domain samples, each quantized to a fixed bit depth. CD audio is 16-bit/44.1kHz. Studio masters today are typically 24-bit/96kHz or 24/192. PCM is the universal interchange format; every DAC accepts it natively.
DSD
Direct Stream Digital: a 1-bit pulse-density-modulation stream at very high rates (DSD64 = 2.8224MHz, DSD128 = 5.6448MHz, DSD256 = 11.2896MHz). Trades bit depth for sample rate. SACD-native, increasingly popular for studio archives. Many DACs internally convert DSD to PCM for processing.
MQA
Master Quality Authenticated: a hybrid container that folds high-frequency content into the noise floor of a standard 24/48 or 24/44.1 PCM stream, then unfolds it in the DAC. Lossy reconstruction by design; the unfolded sample rate is typically 192 or 384kHz. Requires DAC-side support for full unfolding.
What this means for hardware
For PCM, the DAC just needs to accept the sample rate. For DSD, look for "native DSD" support over USB Audio Class 2 (vs DoP — DSD over PCM — which works but tops out at DSD128). For MQA, look for "MQA renderer" (single unfold) or "MQA decoder" (full hardware unfold) in the spec sheet.