Meridian MQA

[PhilP]

I'm not sure that I really get the point of MQA.  I think you have to consider the whole chain from recording studio (or live recording) to your hifi.  Lets say something was studio mixed and recorded in 24bit, and ended up as a master file in 24/96.  How can you get any better than having your own exact copy of this 24/96 file?  

I'm naturally sceptical too   but according to the audiostream article MQA encoding will actually improve the studio master by 'applying specific filters and processing based on the actual gear in use on the A/D side".

Presumably different types of recording equipment introduce different types and degrees of distortion  (MQA talk about 'missing timing detail') and by knowing what this distortion is the clever people at MQA can correct for it.

Quite how much the master file is changed isn't clear but the differences are apparently audible to many who have heard them. Presumably they would be apparent in a file-file digital comparison.

Of course the MQA encoding/decoding process will most likely introduce distortions of its own...  I don't know how they could be corrected??