MQA at CES

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I wonder if Meridian ever knew that the Aries did not contain a DAC, just a bridge?

If they knew this should be avoided by now. I guess Meridian pulled back the 'universal' setting for one reason or another.

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How could Meridian not know? It isn't like it is an unreleased product kept under secrecy, its been out for well over a year and is clearly apparent on the Auralic website. There is no conceivable way this wasn't previously know.

Auralic confirmed my suspicion on their Facebook side. They discovered it during CES. I just have to laugh of their market knowledge. Neil Young knows more about hifi and downloads than Meridian, apparently (ref. his Pono statement 'HDTracks who?')....

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In the CNET interview with Bob Stewart, Auralic was mentioned as a 'collaborative partner'.

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I wonder if Auralic got the MQA code from Meridian for their DAC(s) and then decided to incorporate it in 'all their products' without getting an approval first?

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The Auralic facebook link related to MQA is taken down.

Probably not by coincidence.....

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I believe it's a bit more sinister than that... How could they, or Auralic, have not tested this... Impossible.

 

Is Roon rolling out MQA? Or is the rollout botched by this turn on Meridian's part?

On the contrary, my impression is that the hifi segment is jumping directly to code base with no structured approach whatsoever. Minimal user stories, no proper code review, no system testing, no independent integration testing. I don't expect small high end companies to be ISO 9000-3 certified, but I think most companies still believe that software is some kind of nuisance add-on that they just have to include in their hardware devices. At least it appear this way.

It is expensive to do things in a cheap manner.

I like the approach Oppo took on their BD players, though.

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BREAKING: Auralic Is MQA Ready By Michael Lavorgna • Posted: Jan 12, 2016

Read more at Auralic Is MQA Ready | AudioStream

Isn't this based on 'known' info available before CES?

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No, I meant that there are currently no DAC chips or S/PDIF receivers out on the market that would have MQA decoder. The current solutions they seem to offer are firmware/software.

I think many DAC suppliers would benefit from a non-existent MQA because their strong side is to stand out from the rest on the processing side of it.

I wonder if MQA may result in DAC's sounding more identical to each other?

I don't think MQA is a gift from the originator to the human kind. It is all about business. I am not sure if all customers understand the rationale behind the strategic intent....

 

I hope it would also work over I2s (LVDS) and not only USB from source to DAC.

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So you mean that the 'universal DAC setting' hypothesis should be abandoned and that it all comes down to an agreement on license/royalty fees?