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

I just checked and, as yet, Meridian are not on the list of exhibitors at the Bristol show.
Still a while to go yet, they might change their minds!

Hi,

Meridian don't generally exhibit at the Bristol show (run by a rival dealer) but there is usually a small 'event' hosted by their local dealer. Meridian/MQA might well be present at the show, hosted by What HiFi.
Pioneer are usually present at the show, so they may be working on MQA enabled kit around that time. Pioneer/Onkyo are due to update their receivers (for DTS-X?) around this time, so they might try and introduce MQA as well.

Brian

Were not 7Digital supposed to start offering MQA beginning today? I have not found any offerings on their UK or Canadian websites. I know they supply other sites (Onkyo is one, I believe) but I was led to believe 7Digital's site would be offering "thousands of tracks" by the end of this month.

Also, it makes no sense trying to market MQA software or hardware when no one can yet play anything as actually intended. Now that software is trickling out, come on hardware people (i.e. Meridian / MQA), get your act together and show us what the hype is all about. If you want to promote a new product / format, you have to back up what you say with both product and software that works. If for some reason there are delays (again), please be decent enough to offer an explanation and a timeline. There is no reason for secrecy at this time.

Sorry for the rant, but it is time to get past the marketing aspect and into the product delivery phase.

Wayne

I fully agree with Wayne.
My patience has finally worn through. I first bought Boothroyd Stuart products over 40 years ago and have supported Meridian's endeavours since the beginning. I bought an Explorer 2 DAC in the mistaken belief that it was MQA ready, since it was so described by the manufacturer! I suspect this could be a breach of the Trades Description Act.
It is utterly ridiculous that they have not produced the firmware upgrade to enable MQA on this product - after a whole year. Come on Meridian ...WHEN?

Sorry but I don't agree. When you have multiple parties like here ( MQA development, hardware manufacturers, content delivery) there will always be one that is first. Even if they had everything ready 6 months ago there wasn't any content to play. And no finalized MQA chips...

Reminds me of the good old widescreen TV introduction...

... So, remind me again, what exactly was launched at The Shard more than a year ago? Because I too bought an 'MQA ready' Explorer 2 despite Bob Stuart always saying best business practice is to 'go where the catalogue is'.

From a thread over at Roon's forum: It is really difficult at this point to theorise if there are any other errors/cock-ups that could have been squeezed in to this whole shambles.

Personally, my thoughts are more with 'Major Tom' and associated great memories and this fiasco can wait. Credibility is vital and hard to replace when lost.

~M~

To clarify: I know multiple parties are involved and it has taken a long time to launch. But, now that software is being released, it is time to allow the firmware upgrades so owners can actually listen to the end product. I owned about a dozen DVDs before I got my first player, but that was a matter of waiting for a specific player to be released. Here, I own the products, have gone to the trouble of upgrading the hardware to current spec, and I still have to wait for an unknown period of time until the firmware is released. Even my country's M. rep. does not know the release details.

Again, there needs to be coordination between hardware and software development in order to be successful. It is great to see software titles gradually being released, but end users will get frustrated if they are kept in the dark for much longer and their hardware remains only semi-functional. I have heard that the firmware is ready (rumours maybe) so I don't understand the additional delay. Perhaps they are waiting for other hardware manufacturers to be ready before the firmware is released but, if that is the case, please say so.

So please, let's get on with it!

Wayne

I believe Bowie may have written something close to the following

Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with MQA's release
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah

Anyway - we've been here some many times before. Bad communication, slagging off of M, then a full release which is often better than expected, Bob is God and so the cycle continues. This time is has a wider audience. If it was Apple we wouldn't know anything about MQA right now. I think that there may have been a legal or technical hitch which needs ironing out and then the show goes on. I can only imagine how frustrated M must be right now. Who didn't see this?

Cheers
Tom

Although it might well be an issue around Meridian launching before any of the other players that have licensed MQA, my personal belief is that Bob isn't happy with something on the technical side of things and won't launch until he is.

Where is the like button when you need one?

MQA material is live in the Onkyo Music Store.

It's not my attempt to be an M apologist, but a lot of this feels familiar to me:

1. M is not a particularly good communication company (I'm soft-pedaling a bit here)

2. Expectation setting has been pretty bad

but:

3. With a technology as disruptive as MQA from a lot of different viewpoints (financial model, distribution control model, etc.), there are bound to be partner eruptions at every instant, and you can be sure that a classy (if uncommunicative) organization such as M are not going to bad-mouth partners publicly, especially when trying to evangelize a life-work kind of technology.

4. It's pretty normal for complex, disruptive technology to have unforeseen issues just-before/just-after release. The AuraliC issue is certainly disappointing to many, but it appears to be temporary.

5. I'm on the fence as to how well they've communicated where the benefits come from. While they haven't published a layman's level white paper, they've certainly put a lot of detail out through multiple channels. We've all had to piece it together, but all the info's out there. I've read the patent, and found that most of the info was already available from mass-media sources (Stereophile, Bob Stuart's interviews, etc.).

6. If you've heard the demo, you know that this is easily worth waiting for. We're right on the edge of a genuine, multiple order of magnitude improvement in the most important part of the system (the music). I want this badly. Another couple of months will be worth it.

Having heard an MQA demo, I'm feeling impatient . . . and grateful