Meridian MQA

[Hifi_swlon]

I just received the following discouraging message from Devialet whether they will support MQA in the Expert line in the future:

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I wouldn't worry about that reply, it seems more like a stock response, and Devialet never seem to say anything about what they're doing.

FWIW, even if they skip a generation or two of products before they include MQA, you're unlikely to miss out on many MQA titles unless there's a huge industry-wide surge of enthusiasm for it - there's barely anything in the format. Sure, Tidal may enable it soon, but my hunch is the extended delay is because they're in the same position - there's no music.

I found them a bit annoying personally, but the Shiit team had this to say about DSD and MQA (posted on another forum somewhere). It works if you click on vimeo button.
https://vimeo.com/160027074

[Music or sound]

At my visit to the Highend 2016 I have seen quite a few of MQA signs and listened to some but I was not blow away by anything I heard. I talked to Weiss whio's Mani 301 now can play MQA. They stated I sounds good but the improvements are very marginal (their demo conditions were not good enough to evaluate anything because of too much noise). So I am less interested in it!

[johnsap]

Weiss suggests that if SQ of MQA is as good, the industry can move to MQA simply because files weight twice as less..

[Markpd]

I did a listening test at home on MQA decoded by an Explorer 2 fed as an analogue line input to my D200 and found it sounded about as good at 24/192 played over AIR 3 beta on the 2L test music samples.

Which is very impressive since the Explorer is just a £199 DAC and there are 2 extra " unblurred" A/D and D/A conversions in the Audio chain.

For this reason alone, MQA deserves to be a great success.

Mark

[PhilP]

Devialet aren't alone in not committing to MQA. In fact according to MQA's own web-site the list of partners is very short and there's no sign of influential audiophile brands like Naim or Linn - both competitors of Meridian, of course.

Assuming the technology is sound (and all reports appear to confirm that it is) then the key to its success is getting content providers on-board and that also appears to be something of a challenge.

http://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/our-partners

[Hifi_swlon]

...
Assuming the technology is sound (and all reports appear to confirm that it is) then the key to its success is getting content providers on-board and that also appears to be something of a challenge.
...

I've never heard it, but all the reports I read appeared to be about 50-50 as to whether its 'sound' or a bit of clever marketing... But, yes, the technology without the music (or a wide selection of hardware on which to receive its full benefits) kind of makes it unimportant in the immediate future IMO.

The comparison between MQA on the Explorer as an analogue source, and 24/192 on Devialet over AIR doesn't tell us much about MQA to my mind though ...

[Antoine]

I'll believe MQA's superiority when much more music, including mainstream music, has been released and it in general tends to sound better. Now it's just a small number of carefully selected recordings/productions that's out there.

[Music or sound]

I'll believe MQA's superiority when much more music, including mainstream music, has been released and it in general tends to sound better. Now it's just a small number of carefully selected recordings/productions that's out there.

There is just a quite good review published by Michael Lavorgna  and he says: "MQA needs to offer a very large catalog of MQA-encoded music before I get really excited.
Read more at http://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-r...7ag3qhb.99"

[Confused]

To me, in a world with DSD, 24/192 etc. the concept of a new music format, a format that is not compatible with many existing DAC designs, is somewhere between flawed, doomed or very ambitious.

I won't comment on SQ performance until I have had a chance to audition properly. I do have my doubts as to MQA's survival though.

[Eddye]

To me, in a world with DSD, 24/192 etc. the concept of a new music format, a format that is not compatible with many existing DAC designs, is somewhere between flawed, doomed or very ambitious.

I won't comment on SQ performance until I have had a chance to audition properly.  I do have my doubts as to MQA's survival though.

I wrote just that on the first page of this thread in december 2014. I still don't know about the SQ, and I still think it isn't going to survive.