Originally Posted by Carl
Originally Posted by CharlieU
MQA can be delivered in the MP3 format.
Hi,

MQA needs a lossless delivery system, so standard [lossy] MP3 would be a problem.

MP3HD which is lossless would be ok, but from what I understand that format was in development back in 2009, its aim to be compatible with existing MP3 players. I don't think it ever caught on with the dominance of FLAC, ALAC, ...
I wouldn't expect that a MQA encoded MP3 would match the quality of MQA encoded lossless format. Even with MQA's encoding tricks, there will be less bits available if they want to keep the file sizes similar. Since these MP3 tracks are playable on any MP3 player, there is a huge market already in place. Once hardware manufacturers start including MQA decoding into their devices, those MP3's will just sound better. I believe that MQA encoded MP3's will be a major force in keeping MQA from being just another niche format.

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