It's "new" enhanced and very efficient audio compression scheme that's slathered with content provider jizm and audiophile drool.What's MQA?
for_p1: Not sure why anyone would expect giving away lossless copies of masters for free would be a sustainable business model.
Who said "for free"? But when I pay $25-30 for album in high-res, I do expect content identical to the master. That is what you can find today at HDTracks, iTrax and other outlets.
But with MQA Meridian wants to create something what Sony failed with SACD - completely closed proprietary ecosystem.
Actually that's wrong on both counts, but ultimately time will tell if MQA succeeds where SACD/DSD failed.
One of the core aspirations in MQA is to guarantee that the analog you feed into your system is the same as the analog source material (master tape or whatever) negating any colorations introduced by the specific ADC and DAC components used in the process or getting content from studio to to your system. Any current hi-res download is subject to such issues introduced by the studio's ADC.
Also MQA files are totally backwardly compatible - they just appear as 44.1 or 48kHz PCM data using whatever file format you choose. If you have no MQA-aware products in the playback system they play as slightly improved CD quality. If you do have an MQA-aware DAC, the additional data is extracted to the max resolution your DAC is capable of handling. So if you play a file or stream on a phone, you get CD quality but play it through a higher end device and you may get 24/192 or whatever that DAC is capable of handling.
There's a very well done interview with Bob Stewart on the subject here;
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/meridians-master-quality-authenticated-the-interview/
As a technology, MQA seems to deliver what it promises with very few strings attached. Whether it actually succeeds will probably depend on the availability of good source material from the studios and enough marketing clout from the industry to persuade the man on the street that they care about quality above MP3s played on earbuds . .
Identical masters. Everything? Not hardly always and most probably not the norm. Would it pop your balloon to know that a grand slue of tracks from HD and i outlets are merely up-sampled redbook to 24/96? The weeds are thick in this bizness.Who said "for free"? But when I pay $25-30 for album in high-res, I do expect content identical to the master. That is what you can find today at HDTracks, iTrax and other outlets.
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Identical masters. Everything? Not hardly always and most probably not the norm. Would it pop your balloon to know that a grand slue of tracks from HD and i outlets are merely up-sampled redbook to 24/96? The weeds are thick in this bizness.
Whether it actually succeeds will probably depend on the availability of good source material from the studios
I also know that majority of mastering is done today (and in the past) at 24/44.1 or 24/48
Well of course. Do you have a better idea/means as to how they could license and monetize their codec?For anything better you need authorization keys to decode extension.
Erm...really? That's a news flash.