Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Re: MQA status?

Thoroughly depressing Radio 4 programme broadcast today ( Compression versus Art ) discussing compression, loudness and the relative qualities of MP3, CD and "high resolution". The most depressing "conclusion": you need a really good hi fi to hear the difference betweem 320 MP3 and CD, and the difference between CD and high resolution is even more subtle - subtext, it's only for the hifi geeks.

The most interesting part was a 10 second clip of the parts of a Steely Dan track that had been removed by the MP3 process (ie the lost bits) - really quite revealing and it's worth listening to the whole programme just to hear this clip.

Roll on MQA.

I think I have heard a similar program before, it's just a shame they don't come to my house and listen, let alone yours... lol

It makes me mad, they just don't seem to understand music.
I bet they know nothing about MQA.

People not really interested in music, commenting on music as if they know stuff...

Chris 😎

It seems to me that hardware manufacturers thought there would be a lot more content out there? Maybe some hardware delays played into as well. As is the case with CES every year. Each high-end manufacturer is holed up in a suite in the Venetian, demoing their hardware to buyers, developers and investors, etc. Having a black box and little content to play really doesn't do much for anyone. I think back many years where they all played the same Diana Krall to the point where I cannot even stand to hear her voice anymore. Bob Stuart seems be the roaming voice of MQA and by extension, Meridian. Though it seems he is very much wearing the MQA hat today as he seems to be popping up in all sorts of places.

One thing to note is that CES got a format revision this year, which decentralized the event. Feedback I have gotten is mixed. Sector specific people love it. While others looking for coolness factor and such are struggling.

Onkyomusic.com (US) now showing MQA music for sale. Music from 2L but also other labels. For example The Mark Radcliffe Folk Sessions 2014

I noticed that some albums are marked MQA and others "MQA Studio"

Soundserge

I wonder if Meridian are holding back from making any announcement in order to strengthen the view of MQA being for a broad market and not just the Meridian environment. Making MDMS (Sooloos) announcements at CES might have got people thinking only of the two things together without considering all the other MQA news out there, which is vital for the overall viability of the technology.

We are being (slightly) sacrificed for the sake of The Greater Good, for people who can't hold more than one thought in their head at a time. Maybe something just after CES?

Just a thought.
Ian

This quote sounds encouraging (from twice.com):

Not too convinced about 'The Greater Good', having the MQA music out there with little or no available playback options and consequently no word of mouth beyond CES itself is hardly going to set the world alight.

It's over a year since the Shard announcement and really, at the very least, Explorer 2 firmware, which is both affordable and extends beyond just Meridian fans (us!) out into the wild, should have been ready to coincide with CES.

Netflix, for example, have gone global and did so during the launch announcement. Perfect.

Just personal opinion, but if Meridian launched the Titanic, it would never have made it out of the harbour. Plans for CES, seem oddly erratic, as if it was an unexpected event.

~M~

Not the best analogy. The Titanic not leaving the harbour would have been "a good thing".

CES still has a couple of days to go, but I'm not holding my breath. I really hope M are quick with their firmware though. It would seem to be pretty pathetic of them not to have some home advantage when it comes to allowing people to listen to all these new MQA files.

And I doubt whether the early adopters who spent £11,000 on an 808v6 or £8,000 on an 818v3 are too happy either, with MQA material available but not able to be played on the kit!

Perhaps a bit of over-interpretation, but:

- There are customer oriented companies
- There are marketing oriented companies
- There are product oriented companies

To my thinking, M is a near extreme of the last (product oriented), and produces incredibly (long term) satisfying products, but drives many of us a bit crazy (in the short term) by ignoring the touchy-feely side of things.

Many of us are itching to finally hear this technology in our own homes, and M hasn't given us much in the way of expectation setting, but (for me) waiting a little bit longer will be more than made up for by the pleasures to come.

I recommend patience, cursing and strong liquor (order is optional)

That's all well and good, Akimo, but I'm doing Dry January.

And some of us have a lot less time available to wait than we used to have.