It's been a while coming, but 2016 should finally mark the commercial arrival of MQA downloads and streaming. MQA is a new technology, developed by Bob Stuart (co-founder of Meridian Audio) that delivers master-quality audio in a file that's small enough to stream or download.
HTC will demo a prototype of its One A9 smartphone with MQA technology as a 'proof of concept' at CES 2016.
And if you want to buy MQA music files, Scandinavian music label 2L will be the first to offer them for sale. 2L was founded by Morten Lindberg, a Grammy nominee and well-known figure in the recording industry.
"Meeting Bob Stuart and discovering MQA has been a total revelation," says Lindberg. "I have spent many hours with Bob listening to original recordings and being constantly amazed by the incredible sense of space and clarity brought by MQA. The end-to-end process allows us to more accurately capture the original sound and to deliver it perfectly all the way through to music lovers."
The availability of MQA music is set to expand further in 2016 with 7digital, Onkyo Music, Tidal and HQM (Japan) all aiming to bring MQA music to the public.
And on the hardware side, Auralic, Aurender, Bluesound, Berkeley Audio, dCS, Kripton and Ixion will join the official MQA supplier list alongside Meridian Audio, Mytek, Onkyo and Pioneer.
We'll bring you more MQA news from the floor at CES as soon as we get it.
