New Meridian audio format creating quite a buzz

Hi Tullmen, it's always a pleasure to hear from you. I will try MQA at Chicago High End Audio Show (EXPONA 2017) in April - please wait for my report here.

Many writers over praised first CDs and CD players (some regret that afterward) - they were too exited what little silver disc can do and saw big potential in CD playback. And, in 25-30 years, when labels wants to cut them out, CD finally started to sound good. Sometimes, when I'm listening contemporary recordings, I wonder how just a regular piece of plastic can sound so good. Everything has changed since: and technology, and prices, and even materials. Do you remember how much first flat big screen were? Now my little Samsung in the kitchen would outperform all of them... it's absolutely normal order of things. So, hold your 7030 firmly - it's maybe the last Onkyo CD player ever built and in a few years price will go up to $13,000, who knows...

 

PS Audio is on a board and their top of the line DS DAC will come with MQA via firmware upgrade for the beginning. If MQA will survive, DerectStream Jr. is next.

 

This thread in the psaudio forum doesn't indicate that they're on board with MQA
MQA Controversy | DirectStream DAC | ForumsPS Audio »

They're investigating MQA support. But not making very enthusiastic comments about it. Maybe their opinion has changed. I haven't been following every move and change.

 

Yes, discussion is going on and everyone has his own opinion about MQA without hearing it, but situation is like that:
MQA engineers were working on DS DAC to incorporate MQA features in it.
This attempt didn't work well, as Paul McGowan mentioned: "... it’s because the tricks they’re using with filters to try and make the sound better (closer to the original source material) screws with our own in the DAC. They then suggest they need to tune their decoder to our filters for best results."
Paul was strongly against: "... the engineers continue to improve the state of the art with digital filters on a regular basis – and one of the whole reasons we went to an FPGA based DAC in the first place was the freedom to improve the product’s performance over time." He said that he don't want to be restricted in the future development, being tight to MQA engineers...
Then, he admitted that "they've never said that has to be so." And he added:
"I too wish they’d just release this as software so the compressed file could be decoded and leave the DAC design to us."

This software is in the development now and Berkeley, who are in the same situation, announced that they "will offer a software update to the Alpha Reference and Reference 2 later this year. Unit not need to be return to the factory for the MQA upgrade."

It's kind of too risky to buy new DAC without MQA now. What if...
What if MQA really will be the major digital format?
What if it really sounds better that anything else?
What if all DACs will be MQA-enabled?
What if all that Robert Harley says, it turns out to be true?
What if all the new releases and new remasters will be in MQA?
What if they did not screw everything up? (No, forget about that one - it's impossible).

 

What's wrong with just staying with FLAC?

 

What if I buy a DAC I wouldn't otherwise like just because it has MQA support?

Berkeley providing MQA support in the latest DAC is nice and all. But I cannot afford their new DAC. It is really expensive. I cannot get a DAC like that. Ain't gonna happen. I do like Berkeley. I heard a Berkeley Alpha DAC when auditioning my Cavalli Liquid Fire headphone amp. And that DAC is a reason why I was so captured by the sound of the Cavalli amp. The combination of the Berkeley and that amp was awesome. Better in ways than my Schiit Gungnir Multibit. The Berkeley had more depth and was doing something else that just worked very well with the amp. But even a used Alpha 2 and USB interface is more than I want to spend for a DAC. So I settled for a Schitty Gungnir Multibit DAC that is never going to get MQA.

 

I don't know. I thought I saw JA refer to MQA as "crippleware" in the latest issue. I'll look at it again tonight but I thought that was a fitting label.

The 24/192 cat is out of the bag. Record companies, if you are listening, do not go backwards.