I think the full audio chain MQA control has already been scrapped and will at best become some niche stuff in a few years. why would all the studios go through the trouble of changing their gears, restricting what they can do in mixing and mastering, just for a compression format because some dudes at Meridian said they subjectively preferred the band limiting filters they made? it makes very little sense IMO.
plus think about all that already exists, there is no recording all that again just to fool around with an special sauce in the ADC that, as far as I know, isn't even proved to lead to better fidelity. I don't want to make crazy claims, but could it be possible that the entire recording industry didn't wait on Meridian to try a few options for band limiting a recorded track?
anyway, it's much more realistic to treat MQA as a compression format instead of some dubious theory that "it sounds better, it has sample electrolytes, it's what the plants crave!". or whatever marketing time smearing unproved concept they have(unproved that it's audible in music at those levels). those who believe they need more samples and less bits for "better" subjective audio, can use MQA files and save some space compared to the same signal resolution(and not file resolution) of a wav equivalent. compared to flac, it will depend on the compression settings used for the flac. is it better to have higher compression flac or average flac setting+MQA decoding? from a file size perspective? from a CPU perspective? IDK.
can I upsample my file and still have it decoded at the MQA compatible DAC? IDK
can I EQ and have the file decoded at the MQA compatible DAC? 100% no. the decoding would have to be done by the player before applying EQ or we'd end up with a file that doesn't even resolve it's container resolution(kind of sad for a compression format). that's clearly why they started marketing this as a full pack thing and wonders in the DAC, but they very fast moved on to offering software decoding alternative. even without those problems, Tidal wasn't going to wait for consumers to all buy a meridian DAC. it wouldn't have made any sense. so software decoding I believe will be the main existence for MQA.
then we have MQA masters, which in the end will really be just masters, like any other masters they don't need DSD MQA highres or itune. stuff are remastered all the time(often for copyright reason and not for music but let's forget that depressing detail). associating new masters with a format is just a "feel good" trick for the format to look good by association. the only obvious result is that it makes it harder to get such masters in other formats if that's how we wished to have them.
the last element of MQA is Meridian pushing for their apodizing filter. a few DAC manufacturers have already expressed how happy they are about having a satellite of Meridian demanding access to design information(go ask Shiit or Benchmark for some good old "I tell it like it is" talk). but that doesn't really matter, because of course if the consumer starts believing he wants something(even for the wrong reasons), then manufacturers will start selling it. it's an economical logic, so who knows? those stuff might come if they're hyped enough for no reason.
but to be perfectly clear, many DAC designers disagree with MQA/Meridian claims about an apodizing filter being the better choice. and those who are also into the time smearing paranoia(which always comes with a cost for the frequency domain, you don't play god reshaping time without impact on the other axis of a sine signal), all have all their own designs and filters to make pretty impulse responses too. here too, the industry didn't wait for Meridian to do whatever they felt they needed to do. any evidence that a MQA dac does better for fidelity than a mega combo burrito from shiit? than an anti time smearing thingy from Ayre? than the gazillion taps from Chord? etc.
it's easy for Meridian to talk the talk, they even sponsored their own paper to agree with themselves on the audibility of low pass filters. but it's still just one brand making marketing claims that they know better. which is what everybody does.
oh no sorry I forgot. the true last element of MQA is how they control the file and generate their own certificates. DRMs never die, just like Jason in Friday the 13Th.oh but it's not a DRM, it's an "authenticity certificate". you know like widows10 "we're not spying on you, we're collecting data".
what's not to like. and then there is the marketing. the half correct videos, the heavy insinuations about better subjective sound from variables at magnitudes that were never proved to be audible. the play with real values used out of context to try and make a point, like the to 8µs delay that humans can detects, brought up as if those values were realistic with musical content. then the misguiding ideas to make people think that the delay between 2 samples is an expression of the resolution and the same sort of delay mentioned above(which it 100% isn't!!).
and then of course from time to time you can see stupid crap like that :
labeled as :
"Notional", it could just the same read "I know a guy and he had an opinion on things". I almost grow a third hand just so that I can facepalm in proportion to the pseudo science.
but hey it's nothing new. Pono came up with the little birds and fishes on a resolution graph, and a video where they mistook file compression with dynamic compression... I should be used to that marketing crap by now.
and just like it was with Pono, I expect mostly people who don't understand digital audio to become convinced that MQA is the best thing since sliced bread. subjectivists convinced by unproved objective arguments and sighted tests. that too is an old recipe.
