Over the past 12 months, the Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) team has forged a number of new partnerships to boost the availability of MQA-enabled products and software. The latest MQA hardware partners include AudioQuest, CanEVER Audio, dCS, Esoteric, IAG, Krell, Lumin, Mark Levinson, MOON by Simaudio, Pro-Ject Audio Systems, TEAC and Wadax.
Mark Levinson, the Harman high-performance audio brand, is one of the most recent MQA adoptees. Jim Garrett, director, marketing and product management, Mark Levinson, says the company adopted MQA to augment its latest audio product.
“We are proud to announce the addition of MQA playback support to our Mark Levinson No. 519 Audio Player,” says Garrett. “The ability to offer our customers the highest level of fidelity is paramount to our brand and MQA is a natural extension of that approach.”
The IAG brands Audiolab and Quad are aiming to launch several products with MQA integrated into their 8300 and Artera respective product lines. IAG says its engineers have spent additional development time to ensure that existing customers will have the option to upgrade their current 8300 or Artera DAC board to make them MQA compatible.
Krell, the Conn.-based high-performance audio manufacturer is planning to include MQA in its Digital Vanguard Integrated Amplifier and Vanguard Universal DAC products.
Dominique Poupart, product manager at MOON by Simaudio, which is another recent adoptee, notes the high-resolution audio format facilitates an efficient way to manage a quality music experience.
“MQA is the ideal format for high quality streaming, and the perfect way to explore new music through various music services,” says Poupart. “We are excited about integrating this technology into select audio products coming soon in our MOON line-up.”
MQA Integration Extends Beyond Hardware
Supporting the playback of TIDAL HiFI, AudioQuest will release a free firmware update on May 17 for its award-winning DragonFly Black and DragonFly Red portable USB DACs, enabling playback of all MQA files, including TIDAL’s growing collection of Masters titles.
Others integrating MQA include StreamUnlimited, which is implementing MQA into its modular software solution—StreamSDK.
“We are proud to be able to partner with a company and a product developed with such a passion for music, and look forward to helping our brand customers and manufacturers include this technology in their new product lines,” comments Frits Wittgrefe, CEO, StreamUnlimited.
In addition, Conversdigital will also be implementing MQA into its mconnect module and are already in discussions with many manufacturers on the implementation work, and TIDAL HiFi subscribers will also soon be able to benefit from integrated TIDAL support from the Amarra 4 Luxe media player software product.
“Sonic Studio is excited to announce our collaboration with MQA, to bring all the benefits of the MQA experience for local playback and streaming high resolution music to the Amarra family of products,” adds Jonathan Reichbach, CEO, Sonic Studio.
Mark Piibe, executive vice president, global business development and digital strategy, Sony Music Entertainment, says the growing adoption of MQA is a positive development for high-resolution audio advocates.
“As a long-running supporter of MQA’s high resolution audio solutions, we are encouraged to see a growing number of digital service providers and consumer hardware companies adopting MQA technology to make studio sound quality from Sony Music artists available to streaming music consumers,” says Piibe.
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