MQA bails on RMAF
 

its posts like this that have held me back from adding an MQA module to my DAC

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6046

Why are they so afraid to debate the technology?

Not surprising as Meridian doesn't really want to deal with all the justifiable "backlash" they are getting about MQA.

As far as I am concerned, MQA is just another scheme to 1) extort licensing money from content providers 2) extort licensing fees from manufacturers 3) extort money from the streaming content providers, which then get passed on to customers 4) give audiophile writers yet another "hi-res" format to write about and most importantly 5) get customers to re-buy their content all over again for a fourth or fifth time (LP, CD, SACD/XRCD, DSD, and now MQA). Remember all the brouhaha back in 2012 about DSD? Well, here we go again; it's frickin' ridiculous.

This is the same kind of extortion that all the surround sound companies were/are pulling. From Schiit's statement about this and MQA: "Our experience with standards-driven industries is sub-par. Consider the surround market. Companies making surround processors now have to support a dizzying array of different standards, none of which is a market differentiator, and the exclusion of any single standard can mean commercial failure. The result is a market in which competition is stifled and consumers are confused."

Andreas Koch, one of the pioneers and architects of modern digital audio, and founder of Playback Designs, slammed MQA as a "money grab" and a fraud: "...the new format has to be proprietary and patentable so royalties can be collected. After all that is the entire reason to do it-selfish greed. As we have seen above, there is no other good reason, no customer benefit." This is exactly the point Schiit was making, in essence.

Of course, all the content provides like Warners and audiophile pubs are all over it because it drives "content and component churn". Component churn is what the audiophile pubs are all about because it drives manufacturer ad revenue and keeps them in business.

Sorry, I'm not buying in....

I've got thousands of Lp's, CD's, SACD's .........I couldn't give a rats rear end !

I still can't hear a difference.

That's because there isn't any....that's what makes it so specious on it's face...

There would be a lot more difference in how a recording was mastered than whether its an MQA file.

Listend to a 16/44 music file from the Audio Wave XRCD/24 Blue Note series re-mastered from the orignal analog master tapes by Alan Yoshida....these recordings are 95-98% of the quality of a Music Matters LP. They're astonishing.....

What a scam.

Sorry. You know not what you speak. There is a very noticeable difference,

If there is any difference it must be subtle at best. I tried to hear it...

Where is the MQA DAC in your system? You do not identify one?

Listened to mqa at RMAF in a few rooms. Nothing special.