I got to ask Keith Johnson of Reference Recordings about MQA in person yesterday during the Avalon demo near RMAF.
I wish I knew more about digital music so I could ask intelligent and relevant questions, but I don't. In any case what I got out of it is that MQA is an apodizing filter that corrects for brickwall filtering used in the mastering process. At higher bitrates the brickwall filter isn't used, and other gentler filters with less side effects are used instead. So MQA won't be an improvement in this case while it may indeed improve other digital recordings that used brickwall filters.
Keith is not planning on installing MQA hardware in Spectral DACs right now, although he seemed excited about the possibility of MQA being able to contain different masterings that are intended for speakers, headphones or multi-channel listening.
edit:
Keith also mentioned the effect of the MQA filters is to shift the soundstage forward which some like but is just an artifact and not accurate.
Also, here's some info on Meridian's apodizing filter:
https://mrapodizer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/technical-analysis-of-the-meridian-apodizing-filter/
I wish I knew more about digital music so I could ask intelligent and relevant questions, but I don't. In any case what I got out of it is that MQA is an apodizing filter that corrects for brickwall filtering used in the mastering process. At higher bitrates the brickwall filter isn't used, and other gentler filters with less side effects are used instead. So MQA won't be an improvement in this case while it may indeed improve other digital recordings that used brickwall filters.
Keith is not planning on installing MQA hardware in Spectral DACs right now, although he seemed excited about the possibility of MQA being able to contain different masterings that are intended for speakers, headphones or multi-channel listening.
edit:
Keith also mentioned the effect of the MQA filters is to shift the soundstage forward which some like but is just an artifact and not accurate.
Also, here's some info on Meridian's apodizing filter:
https://mrapodizer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/technical-analysis-of-the-meridian-apodizing-filter/
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