Meridian have stated that DSP speakers which support MHR will be able to exploit MQA to the best that their hardware allows.
Indeed.
It will require a firmware change and I have no idea when that will be.
I don't recall Meridian ever saying this; I think this is purely supposition on our part, but I would agree that new firmware is probably needed.
The reason I posed this request for clarification was to understand whether, and to what extent, MQA goodness can be exploited on pre-SL DSP speakers.
The lack of the increased bandwidth provided by SL interconnects (*) and lack of two-way communications concerning the downstream speaker type (**) suggest that the MQA audio experience through non-SL DSPs would be constrained to "only" the unfolded extra information (up to 24/192 equivalent) and the de-blurring of errors from the original A2D process (handled by the preceding MQA end-point) but would omit the D2A conversion correction. Which suggests that quite a lot of benefit is retained.
Bob answered a very precisely worded [by me] question in the
CES 2015 Q&A which leads me to believe that we're going to get - at least - the equivalent of 192/24 inputs into the legacy DSPs. Specifically, I asked whether a 2x sample rate ENCODED MQA file would sound better DECODED into legacy speakers than not decoded. He said yes. Given that, apparently, unfolding MQA to 2x sample rates gets you most of the benefits, I have a feeling that decoded MQA at 192k will sound remarkable on my 6ks, for instance.
Q6. We appreciate that how MHR and Meridian DACs work are secrets. However, with an MQA source and new loudspeaker firmware if required, will non-SE MHR-capable DSP loudspeakers deliver greater time resolution with a *decoded* 96k MQA stream than they will with the same *un*-decoded 96k MQA stream? i.e. time resolution improvements over and above the inherent (apodizing) improvements in the un-decoded MQA file. Is this effectively the long promised "firmware update to enable 192k [or better]"? A6. Yes and possibly! But we don't comment on future product plans 
But you have come to know we always try to support our customers beyond industry standards. I am guessing that MHR is required for some supposed jitter control advantages and, commercially more importantly, for encryption (***)?
*** Were we not told that there was no copy protection inherent in MQA? Also see the Auralic issue which IIUC involved unencrypted wireless digital transmission.
MHR was developed for a specific commercial goal which was, of course, encryption of the digital output from DVD Audio. However, given Meridian's reluctance to state anything beyond "we will be delivering MQA over MHR", the encryption is a very convenient means of protecting their IP (i.e. how they are squeezing 384k audio - or higher - down a 96/24 pipe).
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