Is MQA Fading Away?

When I had an MQA DAC I thought the sound quality was excellent. MQA is based on a solid technical foundation using well-known psychoacoustic principles. No hocus pocus.

I have since sold my MQA capable DAC and switched to Quobuz. I don’t miss MQA, but I have had to increase my internet plan to accommodate the unnecessary higher bandwidth.

I guess It’s a ‘don’t care’ for me at this point. If I got an MQA capable DAC again I’m not sure what I’d do.
 
W9TR said:
...MQA is based on a solid technical foundation using well-known psychoacoustic principles. No hocus pocus.
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FWIW, this is also true of MP3 and AAC, and the same "reservations" about the sound quality of those formats applies to MQA. For example, I find AAC 320k to be just fine for mobile listening (car); at any speed over about 25 mph I can't tell the difference between that and "lossless" audio even in my fairly quiet cars. Most listeners are fine with 256k AAC anywhere anytime.
 
rbbert said:
Not necessarily. If it wished to, MQA Limited could easily cut its overhead to near zero at this time; the company itself should no longer be incurring costs beyond its payroll (R&D is done, and it doesn't manufacture anything), and it really doesn't need any current employees except bookkeeping.
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Really!? So how in the world are they going to secure more business?
 
nicoff said:
Really!? So how in the world are they going to secure more business?
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Yes, how? They have no new products to develop. Do you mean they need to have some representatives (i.e., ad men) to keep pushing their product?
 
I could have sworn I saw the MQA rep in the synergistic research room at the Florida audio expo. Did he leave MQA?
 
still-one said:
More and more MQA titles are released each week. Plenty to choose from
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Yep, and MQA technology is being issued on a limited number of LPs with the Plangent Process.

I am hearing that MQA is doing very well. They continue to announce a large number of completed licensing deals each year.
 
Lee Scoggins said:
...I am hearing that MQA is doing very well. They continue to announce a large number of completed licensing deals each year.
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You do realize that this is a relatively meaningless statement re: the "health" of the company, don't you?
 
God help us all if they start making MQA LPs.
 
My understanding is that they are selling licenses and making sure that people comply with their standards/processes before certifying a licensee's offering.
 
GSOphile said:
My understanding is that they are selling licenses and making sure that people comply with their standards/processes before certifying a licensee's offering.
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Although nobody seems to know exactly what that means, since it (the standards/processes) has changed several times since MQA's introduction.
 
rbbert said:
Although nobody seems to know exactly what that means, since it (the standards/processes) has changed several times since MQA's introduction.
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They ran out of psychic mediums to contact the spirits of the dead artists and recording engineers to get their approval that the MQA files sound just like the original master tapes.
 
mep said:
They ran out of psychic mediums to contact the spirits of the dead artists and recording engineers to get their approval that the MQA files sound just like the original master tapes.
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While that is certainly a possible explanation, at least equally likely (and perhaps more worrisome) is that they change their standards and processes to meet the demands of the marketplace; surprisingly enough, those demands rarely correlate with or result in improved sound quality.
 
rbbert said:
You do realize that this is a relatively meaningless statement re: the "health" of the company, don't you?
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You do realize that Tidal is part of Square that has a market capitalization greater than Spotify. I have little knowledge of how they will integrate the various businesses controlled by Block but Tidal could be part of a way to deliver special, unique, or limited edition content to its users. NFT's are a new but hot item for some market segments. For example a unreleased Whitney Houston demo has sold at auction, as an NFT, for ~$1million.
 
I have read, in several locations, that MQA was/is a money grab by Bob Stuart. Because of how they are attempting to control everything with this format I would tend to believe this is true.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have read, in several locations, that MQA was/is a money grab by Bob Stuart. Because of how they are attempting to control everything with this format I would tend to believe this is true.
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This entire hobby seems to be a money grab. Controlling content has been No. 1 for years.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have read, in several locations, that MQA was/is a money grab by Bob Stuart...
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This is merely an opinion, not necessarily a fact, unless you consider anything sold as a "money grab". MQA sells a product for which people pay money, the same as any other commercial enterprise.
 
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