Meridian MQA Poll

As @husafreak has already said, this will likely be dependent on the individual players and their manufacturers desire to adopt to another new standard. Some might, others won't, particularly if there is any processor intensive requirement that might impact battery life during MQA operation.

To my mind, it's still another dilution in a market that's falling over with them. I'm rather sceptical of the claims, but am sure Boothroyd-Stuart will do well out of it.

 

Nobody is clear on anything. They have been marketing it for 2 years. I think we will all be spinning our wheels, me included, unless
we hear it for ourselves..assuming you can get hold of an "MQA Ready" DAC.

 

The new 808v6 flagship CD player will do it. Yours for about £11,000.


808V6 SIGNATURE REFERENCE CD PLAYER - Meridian Products | Meridian Audio »

 

$22,000 plus. But it is a full function DAC. Preamp too I believe if you buy that option. (not 100% about this).

 

Yes, and it does get a glowing review in the current Hi Fi World (June 2016 issue), which just arrived today. Then again, for £11,000 / $22,000, perhaps so it should!

It can indeed be plugged directly into a pair of actives and will run as a complete system. Plenty of inputs on the back to accommodate most sources too I think.

 

It's been around for at least a couple of years, wouldn't it have made a splash
by now?

I spoke at length to Meridian at various shows about it and left thinking it's only going
to work if they get really good copies of the masters, which I doubt will happen.

Meridian were always at the cutting edge of digital audio but I think Chord has knocked
them off the top spot.

 

You can try it out for less money with Meridian's Explorer 2 DAC at $299 or $249, or whatever price it is. Other manufacrurers will license the technology and incorporate for much less money than the Meridian 808.6, I'm sure. Mytek has a new unit with MQA - I don't know what that costs.

 

dCS are at or near the top with recent products. I think MQA ia Meridian's bid to retake the field if it can.

 

If your DAC is not firmware upgradeable, you have to buy a new "MQA Ready" DAC..hmmmm....interesting.

And by the way, even if your DAC is firmware upgradeable, that is not a guarantee it can be upgraded. Meridian needs
to have access to the design internals of the DAC, which some companies may balk at.

 

It's another SACD / DVD-A / Blu-ray and all the rest. In order to hear it, you need to buy hardware or you own some gear that might get a firmware upgrade. So many ifs and buts with this, yet another format (and yes, it is a format - the minute it became a wrapper for which it needed it's own hardware and software to enable it to be heard).
So, as another poster said, this could be the best thing since sliced bread, are we really to believe that we're all going to buy Rumours, DSOTM, Out of the Blue, Sgt Pepper's and the rest at no doubt some expense? I have my doubts. The public have been milked nicely over the years. These days, we use Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, we rip our own copies and some of us will, indeed, buy into MQA. But as a mainstream format? Not going to happen.

 

Well, you know, I guess they don't want to give the store away. They'd rather that others did that (and leave them to establish the standards). Sure, it's an anti-competetive scheme, ontop of everything else.

 

I still get a kcik out of all the audiophiles (no one else on the planet cared) who were sweating the fact they had no DSD DACs and ran out and upgraded/
because they were told the "DSD vaults" were gonna open up. How did that work out? Lies told to move boxes. And it works.

 

Judging by the attitudes on this so-called "audiophile" forum, it will probably go nowhere, since we can already surmise that the general public will have even less interest. That is unless Meridian can get a lot of convincing demos out to a lot of people in the meantime, or leverage audio streaming into revenue streaming somehow, and build momentum.

 

Since this talked up as a mainstream product, is Medidian willing to license this out to everyone and can they afford the distribution expense?

 

when is Pet Sounds or Revolver going to be available in that format? , and who would spend that on a cd player that doesn't do SACD

 

What the "audiophile" gets fed is one thing, but let's be really clear about this, the consumer - for that is really what we're talking about here as there is a transaction to be made and somebody will pay and somebody will make money out of it - looks at one of the most confusing landscapes in the home entertainment field.

MQA, SACD, DSD, Blu-ray Audio, HDTracks (various formats), FLAC.......and the rest. Somewhere along the line, somebody will work out that it's maybe not in the consumer's interest to dilute audio to the extent it is.

I won't, however, hold my breath.

 

If the consumer is most interested in ear-bud portable everywhere anywhere MP3 is good enough, then MQA is doomed.

 

Well, that has to be the bottom line of motivation for the development of better (sounding) technologies - the optimism that enough people will care - to make it commercially profitable somehow. People will do blu-sky R&D for awhile or for a certain limited budget, but it continues to actual full product development only of it looks like it might possibly pay off in the end.

 

I think I've seen this movie before: HDCD.

They can do what they want, but I sure hope they don't quietly unleash MQA titles into the market with no "regular" existing-tech option. Only to be told later that MQA played back without processing results in a degraded signal.

Like HDCD (or so it was determined by some users).​

 

MQA will be DOA... if it isn't already.

More nonsense in order to sell people the same stuff over and over.

 

IMO the end game is moving more hardware. And reviving Meridian shrinking market share.
Lots of clever ideas over the years, but nothing commercially viable

 

No, the consumer is you and me too Erik, but let's not slag off the ones that use mp3 or DAPs. That's a completely different market segment and only smacks of elitism by doing so. Notwithstanding that mp3 is probably the most successful of the formats and, shock horror, sounds really good if the source mastering is really good. Been there and done that.

Even for the niche that we occupy though, this is just another entry into an all too fragmented field.

 

This is true but it's a bit like trying to make a case for the manual transmission in 2016. I count myself as a devotee to that but ultimately, the mass of "consumers" will win and I will no longer get that option. I consider it my right to begrudge those other consumers for the fact that at some point, my enjoyment will diminish because the majority has spoken and they want nothing to do with it. If that's elitist, fine. Businesses will go where the money is and if the demand for something like MQA isn't enough to support the cost of it, it'll die like everything else. Perhaps that's an overly simplistic view of things.

 

I think the manual transmission is doing fine over here...!

The trouble is that manufacturers have shot themselves in the foot and the case for MQA isn't really clear to the customer. I rather suspect the real customers are the hardware manufacturers who will embed the technology in their gear. Much in the same way that FLAC is now embedded routinely (I get the fact that it's a different type of technology, in referring to the invisibility of the functionality in new gear ongoing).

Long term viability will be in the availability and adoption of the process, but if we're already seeing reports coming back where people don't hear a difference, then it's not boding well.

 

I'd like to hear it. Also, will only jump on board if my current front end gets an MQA software upgrade to the DAC