I'm neither pro nor anti MQA, in regard to whether or not Chord 'should' or 'shouldn't' implement it, or whether or not it would be
competitively prudent to - I'm just curious about the technicalities underlying MQA.
I understand that they are accessing original master tapes (didn't Neil Young say he was going to do that, before his store just started selling all the same Hi-Res files as every other Hi-Res download store on planet earth?
)
Joking aside, I understand that MQA intend to dynamically 'calibrate' the playback chain (including the digital transport & DAC, unless I've misunderstood) to most accurately mimic the sound of each original analogue master tape (presumably via some kind of metadata embedded within each MQA file?). That'd be all well & good.
What I don't understand, however, is how the MQA approach can improve timing accuracy, unless their actual ADC itself (as a seperate entity from any subsequent codec-engineering, further along the process) is somehow a step ahead of all existing ADCs (and, as DAVE fans know, Rob happens to be working on an ADC following some of his WTA principles implemented in DAVE, Hugo and Mojo). The cleverest codec in the world cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, WRT to timing accuracy, if the ADC itself is no better than any other ADC. Perhaps they are merely saying that the MQA codec
retains maximum timing information
available in the raw ADC'd PCM file.
I dunno - it just surprised me, a few minutes ago, when I followed that MQA link, posted above, and noticed, in another page of their website, that they are strongly pushing the aspect of timing accuracy in their approach, which is not something I have any recollection of seeing in their promotional literature, in months past. I can't help wondering (with a wry grin) if this might have been prompted, to some degree, by Rob's recent success in advancing the state of the DAC art, and his many public statements that timing accuracy is critically-important to convincing music reproduction, but I'm just amusing myself, with that thought, so don't take it too literally
.
.