AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT HOW TO
AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT MANUAL
AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT FULL
AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT PORTABLE
AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT ANDROID

Note MQair and MQA are different: MQA is an audio tool that aims to fix audio problems in digital masters. MQair (that’s the brand name, by the way its official name is the slightly less catchy SCL6) is a hi-res wireless codec from MQA Ltd, the maker of MQA. Pair the CD player with an MQA-enabled DAC, or indeed an MQA-enabled CD player, and you can fully decode the disc to reveal the ‘original hi-res signal heard in the studio’. Any CD player can play an MQA-CD, and, MQA says, it’ll deliver an audible improvement compared to a ‘regular’ CD. MQA-CD is just what it sounds like – MQA files contained on a CD. Indeed, some say that a CD revival is (quietly) underway.

The popularity of music streaming and digital downloading continues to increase, but CDs haven’t gone away just yet.

AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT FULL

MQA full decoder products include high-end DACs and Bluesound’s wireless multi-room line. At this playback level, MQA says that we are hearing what the artists created in the studio – with precise file and platform-specific DAC compensation and management. Products with a full MQA Decoder unfold the file to deliver the highest sound quality.

AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT PORTABLE

MQA Renderer products tend to come in portable forms, such as USB DACs and headsets. Pair an MQA Renderer product with an MQA Core Decoder product and the Renderer can complete the final unfold – up to 768 kHz – and deliver a fully decoded MQA experience. So, the TIDAL app is a Core Decoder and performs the first unfold of an MQA audio file. MQA Core Decoders also come in the form of streaming services and desktop and mobile apps, such as TIDAL. It could also be a media player, for example, Audirvana and Roon. An MQA Core decoder product could be in the form of hardware, such as a digital audio player. MQA Core DecoderĪn MQA Core Decoder product outputs at 88.2 or 96 kHz. The blue light confirms ‘MQA Studio’, verifying that the sound you are hearing is exactly as played in the studio when the track was completed.

AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT MANUAL

Check your gear’s manual for specifics, but the blue light is the, er, gold standard. MQA-supporting kit uses visual signals to ‘authenticate’ that you are hearing the original file. AuthenticatedĪ music file can be altered after release – trust us, it happens – and the listener is rarely aware. Pair the MQA music file with an MQA decoder product (see Core Decoder, Renderer, and Full Decoder entries), and you can experience different levels of ‘file unfold’. So, even on the non-MQA supporting kit, you should experience – in MQA’s words – higher than CD quality. MQA files can be packaged inside any lossless container – including FLAC and WAV – and will play on any digital music device. MQA’s folding technique, pitched against other digital formats, is a less data-hungry system. MQA, rather neatly, calls this process ‘music origami’. MQA-supporting gear can then unfold the file to deliver the best possible listening experience. Once it has captured the recording, MQA tech ‘folds’ the audio file, making it easier to stream. MQA aims to get the timing right, boosting audio quality, especially realism. When MQA encodes audio, several things happen, including the ‘deblurring’ of the source to remove these audible artefacts (introduced by analogue-digital converters, mixing and mastering). MQA says traditional digital audio capture methods create timing errors, reducing naturalness. Huh? Consider this – when a twig snaps in the forest, humans can immediately locate where it is. Recent hearing research, says MQA, shows that humans are much more sensitive to sound in the ‘time domain’ than the ‘frequency domain’. Time machineĪ crucial part of MQA’s elevator pitch is how its patented process improves your digital music’s ‘timing’.

Pair the TIDAL app with an MQA Renderer product, and the latter completes the unfolding of the MQA file.

AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT ANDROID

The TIDAL app (PC and Mac on desktop Android and iOS on mobile and Chrome or Firefox for web players) integrates the MQA core decoder and performs the first unfold of an MQA file. Subscribe to the TIDAL HiFi Plus tier, play a TIDAL Master track, and you are listening to MQA. To hear MQA, check out the TIDAL music streaming platform.

AUDIRVANA MQA BLUE LIGHT HOW TO

Read on for more on how to extract maximum performance from MQA files. To ‘unlock’ the full studio quality of the file, you need an MQA-supporting device however, all MQA files play on all digital music devices. MQA, a company born and bred in the UK, says that it improves resolution by correcting time-based errors that cause audio blurring – see ‘Time machine’ for more. It aims to deliver the (authenticated) master recording in a file small enough to stream. Founded in 2014, it is an audio format for high-resolution audio streaming and downloading. MQA stands for Master Quality Authenticated. We'll keep you up to date when we know moere about the future of MQA‍ What is MQA? The MQA company has gone into administration although MQA (Tidal Masters) tracks are still available on Tidal.

Audirvana mqa blue light