MQA is back in hardware form

[audiogeek]

A multitude of audiophile debates on this subject are all over the internet. MQA supposedly dropped from hi res streaming apps after it was exposed as snake oil. Any thoughts?

MQA is back in hardware form! Yay....

Well, it isn't dead yet! MQA back in hardware form. " MQA is back — and this time it’s hardware. The second version of NAD’s Masters M33 BluOS...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

 

[tmtomh]

A multitude of audiophile debates on this subject are all over the internet. MQA supposedly dropped from hi res streaming apps after it was exposed as snake oil. Any thoughts?

MQA is back in hardware form! Yay....

Well, it isn't dead yet! MQA back in hardware form. " MQA is back — and this time it’s hardware. The second version of NAD’s Masters M33 BluOS...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

Silly - and IMHO really dumb of NAD to waste any production money on a license for this technology. But this is also much less harmful IMHO than the original MQA. This appears to be just some kind of resampling and filtering system, which might bake in Bob Stuart's religious devotion to certain kinds of filters but will likely produce zero audible results for better or worse.

I would be interested to see how this or any future product containing this tech measures in terms of top-octave frequency linearity and out-of-band attenuation, as I suspect the Stuart/MQA filtering preference will show up in those measurements.

 

[kyuu]

Silly - and IMHO really dumb of NAD to waste any production money on a license for this technology.

NAD is part of Lenbrook so it probably didn't actually cost them anything (ignoring what Lenbrook spent to pick over MQA's corpse of course).

 

[DSJR]

A multitude of audiophile debates on this subject are all over the internet. MQA supposedly dropped from hi res streaming apps after it was exposed as snake oil. Any thoughts?

MQA is back in hardware form! Yay....

Well, it isn't dead yet! MQA back in hardware form. " MQA is back — and this time it’s hardware. The second version of NAD’s Masters M33 BluOS...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

Oh my Gawd, that thread is like many discussions here, only worse in my opinion... The whole 'sonic timing' thing comes up again, but I gave up halfway through. One poster did comment that he felt (as I now do) that many early CD players sounded 'thin, harsh and so on' due to bad speakers and maybe amp distortion not revealed in 1980s vinyl players, but upset by the higher dynamic possibilities of a half decent CD player.

I was put off MQA by the revelations of those measuring it and finding plain playback could take the 16 bits of CD down to around 13 bit (UK FM radio). It just seemed daft to me when a good CD player from the late 80s onwards could do so very much better. Maybe I've got it wrong, but Qrono or whatever it's called, seems irrelevant really...

 

[tmtomh]

NAD is part of Lenbrook so it probably didn't actually cost them anything (ignoring what Lenbrook spent to pick over MQA's corpse of course).

Ah, right - good point. Thanks!

 

[threni]

MQA supposedly dropped from hi res streaming apps after it was exposed as snake oil. Any thoughts?

How are you going to hear the wonders of "hi res" if it's tainted with MQA? Why, it'd sound no better than regular red book!

 

[respice finem]

My thought to this? Milking the "cow", as long as possible.

Known from other failures since decades.

The Biggest Failures in Consumer Audio/Video Electronics History

We take a take a look at what we feel to be the biggest product failures in consumer A/V electronics and try to figure out what went wrong and how missteps today may lead to success stories tomorrow.

www.audioholics.com

 

[mhardy6647]

My thought to this? Milking the "cow", as long as possible.

Oh, like multichannel audio! (number 2 on the list...)

We're still getting a new format every 9 months or so (or at least so it seems to me). How many channels is Atmos for home use up to nowadays?

 

[Chrispy]

Never had a very high opinion of Nad.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

 

[Petrushka]

H-PAS?