Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Restaurant at the End of Universe Meridian Dealers - Equipment EVENT: Start of the Meridian MQA show in The Netherlands

Today we had the kick-off for MQA show in the Netherlands. Total blast and fantastic system to run it on: Meridian DSP7200SE, 808 with MQA. We have some photos available, follow this link.

Bjorn

Looks like a nice event. Who put his/her coffee next to the 808 and for how long is that person now banned from your store?

Soundserge

A big thank you to Beter Beeld en Geluid for their hospitality. It was a warm and very welcoming experience.
It was also very nice to have met a few fellow HH's.

Cheers to Richard H from Meridian and Marijn from Viertron for being there and the presentations!

A journalist from the HVT magazine was invited to this event and he asked the audience for quotes, as convincing MQA was to me I still find it hard to give a quote. The sound from MQA... it gave me goose bumps, as from the first notes I was convinced and that was strengthened after I listened to a lot more tracks and which even became clearer during a more intimate session I had with the guys from BB&G and Viertron.

MQA gives such a convincing quality of music, I am stunned but don't ask me to put it under words. I won't get further than 'more musical', 'more real', 'amazing what it can get from the masters', 'the natural easyness, not blowing you away but a relaxed natural sound' , 'sound of the studio' , well the marketing one liners apply here and are true in this case.

Some people didn't like it at all, maybe expecting to be blown away by something (well the sound level did sometimes) but hearing them out it turns out they don't like the sound of the Meridian DSP's or plainly preferred DSD. Anyhow, that was a nice discussion, thanks guys. I came for MQA, not to judge a HiFi kit.

Most files played, all are named in other postings, were from older recordings, hopefully Tidal will cover my complete current collection in MQA because that will be worthless. I can imagine a bit how modern, or rather real high res recordings can be reproduced over a MQA system. We will have a great time listening to music in the near future.

Interesting to hear that the major Labels bought into MQA, both for convenience for the large public as well to improve quality, and to have found a sellable way of the best quality of recorded music from their current vast amount of masters. Whether they will be flatmaster, mastered, remixed, remastered, compressed or what else, that is up to the label and the artist to decide what they (if alive) will sign off.


On the hardware side, I was told that to be able to get the full MQA experience I would need a v3 and SE upgrade. The SE upgrade is the largest step forward and without it one cannot get MQA from DSP's regardless of a MQA upgrade of the processor. More info was said to be published around the Munchen show, not only from M but also from other major players.

At this moment MQA is a BtB model for Meridian, that stage is current and the most important to make it a successful globally accepted format of delivery. Hardware is next step we will hear more of.

Cheers!

Hi many thank for the report, when I heard MQA I had shivers running down my back. I thought WOW this is good!
Can I ask you told you this?

It's clear to get maximum benefit from MQA one needs SE speakers, but Meridian have spoken (given big hints) about being able to deliver decoded MQA to MHR compatible DSP's. Though of course it's not set in stone that this will / can happen.

Regards,
Carl

As example. I am one of the few who has never heard of Brubeck Take 5, yesterday it made me an instant fan. As I write I am listening to it on Tidal, it sounds nice but bloody boring and much (!!) less involving. Even, and now I embarrass myself even more, lady Gaga appeared to be a good singer that I would listen to her album; that is what MQA does, it gives you so much more enjoyment of the artists performance.

I was tempted to go to Richards technical session but listening to MQA files was so much better.

Re hardware, that was advised by the attending M guys, the importer and BB&G. Must be a conspiracy
My thoughts, not confirmed by Richard H (sic!), is that the non SE's will not be able to handle the higher sample rates hence loss of the full MQA capability.

The importer advised that SE should be the first upgrade, that will give greater advantage than the final MQA decoding. If only your processor gets an upgrade rather than going SE, your DSP's will play MQA file as a normal file but you will enjoy the studio master recorded file quality and not the for CD mastered quality. MQA treats the master better than ever. This studio quality is a better recording to listen to hence the step forward in enjoyment, despite being not fully MQA reprocessed on your kit.

A customer confirmed to me that his SE upgrade was very worthwhile and so much more than going from 7200 to 7200.2
Another new-ish 5200SE owner, fellow HH, was not overly happy with them yet. Power cables or placement maybe.

It was also confirmed that MQA could be read from a Redbook CD, the labels however are not interested yet. No customers for it they think, and they are not interested to go 2 generations back by reinventing CD. It is all about streaming. Makes sense but having something in hand is always nicer than a file. And that is where the new App will take an important role.

Anything else was kept secret, we have to wait at least until M�nchen.

If MQA is limited to streamed services only I for one would be very disappointed.

The backwards compatibility of the container technology means that dual CD catalogues are not required - and I've never noticed that actually being a problem when it suits the labels (for example the often re-released Led Zep albums).

Similarly downloads.

This would also be problematic for hardware manufacturers, is the typical high-end Meridian system owner really going to spend megabucks to facilitate a streaming only source?

Gianni, you touch some interesting points.

Streaming is not remote only like Tidal, also via Sooloos or alike file streamers. I understand from it that we can either buy and own files to be stored on our own server, or through a Tidal alike provider. It may depend on the label, either obscure or a major.
We are at the beginning of a new era only.

Meridian invented a new backward compatible way of capturing, filing and transferring audio files. These are from flat master (currently on lacquer, tape, file) as preference or the best available mix or master, which enables record labels to sell high audio quality music to the greater public who is only interested in convenience (hence MP3 won it from DVDA and SACD). See my IFIP report posting, that shows the succes of streaming, that drives the industry.
That MQA processed file can be streamed in a variety of kbs, whatever suits the customer.

This is the BtB model M is on about, and which takes full priority.

From our perspective we need the kit to be able to play MQA and we should not confuse these 2 separate things. I think they really like it to see our eagerness which means they are on the right track for the target group as we are and they happen to be producing. The enthusiasm from record labels, critics and end users energizes the M team for sure.

Meridian at this point is working hard with record labels and cooperating with hardware manufacturers to get MQA enabled systems on the market, both hardware as software for telephone to high end. That is the same as Philips did with the CD introduction, and look how fast that was accepted.

For us music lovers, we will benefit of finally getting the high quality music files we asked for. At a price for some of us who desire the best of the best, yes such is progression in life. For others an Explorer2 is good to go.

By the way it was confirmed that connectiong an Explorer to a smartphone will not work, the driver for the Explorer is too demanding for the phone. Pity, need to wait untill a MQA enabled phone is out there.

Cheers!

Maybe I interpreted "streaming" in too narrow a manner - sorry.

But to play back from (not via) Sooloos/your favourite alternative [hard]disc-based streaming solution means getting the content somehow from either hard media (CD, etc.) or soft (downloaded). Either is acceptable, even at a premium price, neither kills the technology for me.

I think that there was some "off message" communication going on as some of it does contradict what we have been told by senior Meridian staff.

Also, *my* speculation is that the main limiting factor in the non-SEs will be no DAC management (the end-to-end analogue-to-analogue lossless correction). Non-SEs will probably handle 192kHz and maybe higher. TBC.