Yes as a supporter of the potential for MQA on this forum I will be one of the first to admit it is very disappointing and I think andybobs “debacle” is the right word. I guess this also means that MQA for Roon is not going to happen either or is not really needed.
I think MQA are shooting themselves in the foot here and I thought from this in the TAS article Stuart had understood just how difficult a full end to end process would be to commercially implement.
“A purely academic exercise could have created entirely new A-to-D and D-to-A converters that would be fantastic. But pragmatically, there are hundreds of millions of DAC chips out there. You’re not going to go to Apple and say, “I need you to change the chip in my iPhone.” That’s not going to happen. So we worked out how to get the best out of those DACs that are already out there.”
Whilst I expected that the full benefits from MQA would require some form of integration between the decoder and the DAC I thought there should be significant benefits without that just like there is supposed benefits in MQA encoded files played back on current CD players.
Whilst I could understand they may want to hold back on fully certifying such partial solutions and not give them the full MQA “stamp” I cannot understand why they are not allowing them at all. Much of the legacy compatibility they have touted for MQA is now going away.
I guess someone somewhere in the chain thinks they can make more money this way but they could be dooming the whole thing to the same fate as SACD. It will really have to give much better sound improvements than SACD over CD if it is now going to takeoff.
If anyone’s cleaning up at CES see if you can snaffle that MQA roll-down showing Tidal, Roon and Auralic as MQA partners. Might become something of a collector’s item.
Someone(s) might need to hire a new PR/communications firm perhaps?
I only started reading about MQA from the interest on these forums, and it’s got to be about the most confusing launch situation I’ve ever seen.
And I’m still really none the wiser about it all.
They say all publicity’s good publicity I suppose.
This is more than just a PR blunder, even though it very much is in that area, As @andybob mentions, Auralic talks about “removing MQA” from their posts. There should be some picthforks reserved for the accounting and legal teams at Meridian as well.
I wonder what this means for Tidal. If their app can’t convert the MQA stream to better than Redbook without an MQA DAC then outside of the bandwidth issues i don’t see much for the service, though that may be a huge benefit in and of itself i don’t know.
Like you Kevin I think Auralic is more sinned against than sinning here. As Joel says, we’ve only heard one side of the story, but I have sharpened the pitchfork and leant it up against the wall …
The Auralic facebook page is fascinating. I acknowledge its one side of the story but as someone who has previously excoriated Auralic for the way the mini was released im just having a hard time seeing Meridian’s defense.
Q: How come that this was discovered this late in the process? Pretty awkward and unfortunate decision if you ask me. Something must have gone terribly wrong here…
AURALiC: They never check the unit until CES setup then found the ARIES does not come with DAC inside
Um what? Does Meridian really operate in that much of a vacuum that the most popular device for what it is is really unknown to them? Do the agreements no mention anything about requirements? That is an astounding statement.
Q: At this point I don’t really care about MQA unless DAC’s without MQA are suddenly going to become obsolete. I hope this won’t delay the updates to firmware and Lightning DS as the other benefits promised in these updates are of much more interest to me.
AURALiC: Firmware and Lightning DS won’t be delayed, all we need is to remove them from firmware.
There are a couple of software ecosystems i can think of where this version would “accidentally” be leaked.
Q: This is unfortunate! It’s digital processing, what difference does it make if it’s performed in the DAC or in the stream receiver?
AURALiC: Because they want to ‘measure and fine tune’ the filter for each DAC to get MQA certificated. I assume they want all DAC to be sound similar, a Meridian sound?
Well, this is a cluster-you-know-what. After hearing the announcement, participating on the Auralic Facebook page, and thinking about it for a little while I’ve come to the conclusion that out of everything an Aries or Aries Mini offers to me, MQA is definitely something I care least about. The real appeal to me is the Roon integration. Auralic products end up working with MQA on any level, great. If not, no sweat here. I’ll cross the MQA bridge when it really appears in front of me. If it really is the end all, then I’ll consider an MQA approved DAC. Until then, as long as the firmware update for Auralic comes out and I can use Roon with it, I’m a happy camper.
From Auralic’s Facebook page:[quote=Xuanqian Wang](Correction to previous posting RE: MQA, written by someone not at CES.)
During CES, MQA discovered that wireless high-resolution Music Streamers without built-in DACs (i.e., AURALiC’s ARIES, ARIES LE & ARIES MINI) require a slightly different implementation of its technology.
MQA has not yet completed finalizing the definitive version of the technology; no MQA partner has yet to receive the actual final version of this emerging technology, which will be downloadable to any product in the very near future.) Because of this, AURALiC’s original plan to include TIDAL/MQA capability in the v3.0 firmware being issued today will not occur.
So somehow through all of this confusion, the original question we all had remains unanswered:
Will “software” MQA decoders such as Tidal, Roon and Auralic (non-Mini) provide the claimed <10ms time smearing correction or is this only achievable with an MQA DAC ?
This is just crazy. Who knows whats going on. Sounds like some there were some discussions going on today though.
Will “software” MQA decoders such as Tidal, Roon and Auralic (non-Mini) provide the claimed <10ms time smearing correction or is this only achievable with an MQA DAC ?
If the answer still remains unclear when T.H.E. Show rolls around this year i will do everything in my power to get an answer.
