MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) high-res audio technology was announced by Meridian Audio founder Bob Stuart last year. Here’s what you need to know:
• The MQA end-to-end technology is promoted as delivering master-quality audio performance in files that are smaller than today’s high-resolution music files.
• A three-minute MQA download would consume 30MB of storage space on a hard drive or portable device compared to 150MB for a three-minute 192/24 FLAC file, and the MQA version will outperform its FLAC counterpart, the company has said.
• The technology is also said to make high-resolution music streaming practical because MQA streams at 1Mbps on average, only slightly more than CD-quality streaming at an average 0.8Mbps.
• Music from analog, PCM and DSD masters can be MQA-encoded and placed inside any lossless-audio “container” such as FLAC, ALAC or WAV.
