MQA Continues to Gain Momentum with Audio Companies & Record Labels
So far 2016 has been a big year for MQA with an increasing group of companies adopting the technology.
This past week at the annual High End audiophile event in Munich, the high-resolution audio format company MQA announced several partnerships to add to its growing list of adoptees.
High Res Audio, an international high-resolution audio download service is now a partner of the British audio company, and MQA points out that users who employ the download website get access to content from labels such as 2L, Acoustic Music Records, Bauer Studios/Neuklang, Eudora Records, Jazz Arts and Triplet Records.
Looking at some of those labels on the High Res Audio website, the label 2L is expanding its MQA catalog with new content that includes a Mozart MQA Remaster and Marianne Thorsen and Trodheim violin concerts from 2006. Eudora is a new label to the MQA family of products, and MQA says the Spanish record label is updating its entire catalog with a goal to make its content available in the format by the spring and summer of 2016.
“On every Eudora Records project that I work on , I'm driven by a search for excellence, so I admire those individuals and companies who share a similar motivation and pioneering ideas, like Bob Stuart and MQA,” says Gonzalo Noque, co-founder, Eudora Records. “The fact that MQA's encoding is tailored to each recording's particular AD converter speaks volumes about MQA's search for excellence. We are currently finalizing the details of our distribution deals with partners and content providers, with the aim of making all of our recordings available in MQA over the coming weeks.”
Some of the new hardware manufacturers incorporating MQA playback capabilities into its products include the German company Brinkmann Audio's new Nyquist DAC; the American company Mytek with its Manhattan DAC, and Bluesound's upcoming firmware update that adds MQA compatibility to the product line.
Greg Stidsen, director of technology and product planning, Bluesound, notes the addition of MQA compatibility reinforces the brand's goal of delivering the best possible whole-house audio experience.
“MQA is a natural match for Bluesound's high-res music and wireless streaming platform, and we're very excited to be the first wireless multiroom system to play back music exactly how it was recorded in the studio,” explains Stidsen.
