This year’s High End sees MQA reveal further business updates, including new content and hardware partnerships.
HIGHRESAUDIO has joined the list of MQA content providers, meaning users visiting its website www.highresaudio.com can download high-quality releases from many record labels including 2L, Acoustic Music Records, Bauer Studios / Neuklang, Eudora Records, Jazz Arts, Personality Records, Mons Records, Ozella Music, and Triplet Records. A total of 30 albums will be available at launch, with more to come over the coming weeks.
Nordic label 2 expanded its MQA catalogue, with new arrivals including a Mozart MQA remaster. The new “MQA remix 2016” of the Marianne Thorsen and Trondheim Soloists Violin Concertos 2006 release, ‘white gloved’ by 2L founder Morten Lindberg and MQA creator Bob Stuart, saw the original analogue-to-digital-converters brought out of storage and analysed, going back to each individual microphone feed from the archive.
MQA also welcomed Eudora Records to the ranks of labels that offer the audio format. The Spanish label is currently updating its entire catalogue, with MQA versions set to become available through spring and summer of 2016. Commenting on the announcement, Eudora co-founder, Gonzalo Noqué, said: “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. 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 finalising 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.”
High End 2016 also marked the unveilings of further MQA-ready playback products. German maker Brinkmann released its Nyquist DAC, complete with MQA support.
Myte added to its MQA-ready line. The American brand already offered the MQA-ready Brooklyn DAC and now the advanced prototype of the more upscale MQA-capable Manhattan DAC will be shipping in August 2016.
Bluesound also announced that, effective June 1, 2016, MQA will be available on all of its Players via a free firmware update. The Canadian maker’s BluOS firmware version 2.2 enables MQA on all BluOS-enabled wireless music systems.
Commenting on the above news, Greg Stidsen, Bluesound director of technology and Product planning, said: “MQA is a natural match for Bluesound’s hi-res music and wireless streaming platform, and we’re very excited to be the first wireless multi-room system to play back music exactly how it was recorded in the studio.”
