DSD has only recently begun to assume room temperature. All that remains is for the inevitable stench to clear, leaving a small fraction of all released music in its wake. Now is announced MQA, an even more tenuous proposition, not because it not only requires a repurchase or redundant restream of music you already have, but it is Meridian Audio proprietary, therefore requiring the user to indirectly pay license fees. Oh, and a minor tech anomaly: just like MP3 and Bluetooth Audio, it is lossy! Yup. What a deal.
But the High-End magazines - they are going bugphuck. What is the public to think?? Just ask the questions below, but I get ahead of myself. The magazines pander to a hungry readership, eagerly anticipating tech wowsies in an industry which has known 5 major changes of tech in 110 years: Edison cylinders to 78 RPM flat discs, then to 33RPM long playing mono then stereo records, then to CDs, and finally to virtual music either streamed or living on user owned media. All of the significant tech news of 110 years of consumer audio in one sentence. Damned boring.
Where those magazines and their readers miss the boat completely is the lie that consumer audio is a tech driven industry. Don't get me wrong - tech driven superior sound is fun. In reality, audio is all about economics. That's the rub: there is not enough money in the consumer audio market to support two different mainstream media formats or configurations. Never has been. Again, see the questions. The entry level end, from where our users bubble up, care about one thing: bang for the buck. It all begins with 2-3 buck ds dac chips which deliver quite a bit for for cheap in phones, etc. At all levels from the bottom to the top, that which delivers the most for the buck in the current format mentioned above wins. The outliers such as HDCD and MQA, even if sonically superior, have always lost.
Even more important, current mainstream audio's event risk is very low compared to MQA. It is quite difficult to imagine an event scenario which will drag current mainstream audio down. As far as MQA goes, a variety of black swan scenarios exit, such as a famous artist, label, or too many audio manufacturers declining to endorse publicly.
Finally, ask yourself the following:
1. 24 bits in - 13 original + 3 very special Meridian bits out?? Really??
2. Take a look at your software – even if it were all available, are you willing to rebuy/redundantly restream it?
3. Do you have faith that the music owner is willing to invest money to remaster/resell the music you want to buy??
4. Do you really believe reporting based on rumor and hearsay?
5. How many 4-channel records, cassette or open reel tapes, mini discs, HDCDs, and even DSD do you own?
6. Even though Warner Music has signed a Letter of Intent, how many titles have been commited to or announced?
Here is what we are doing at Schiit. We are sending out a press release to indicate why we will not build any MQA decoding device for the foreseeable future. If we are wrong about the future of MQA and significant portions of the available and future audio catalog are offered – we will then be forced to look at in the same terms as Bluetooth Audio, MP3 and other lossy formats. For the moment, it is very safe to assume that Schiit will never be in the biz of attempting the futile task of polishing audio turds.
. Tongue in cheek this time, hope this does not make your dac sound a bit clinical 
