MQA gone shy?

[sls4321]

It's the time of year that MQA publish their accounts and tell their shareholders about how they are going to take over the world by getting the major labels to use their folding for HD audio - and people will pay for it, eventually.

Unfortunately the major labels have decided that normal HD PCM is really rather good and Amazon is the place to sell it.

And total silence from MQA, their accounts filling has a nasty red overdue banner like one of those letters from the tax man. A "going concern" issue, perhaps?

 

[Mickdale]

It good for tidal????

 

[deserter]

We can but hope.

 

[Cereal Killer]

MQA = dead duck

 

[davidsrsb]

I have a suspicion that people who have paid for MQA media will no longer be able to play it at full resolution as DACs fail, just like happened to HDCD

 

[misterdog]

Po no not another supposed ground breaking high res promise biting the dust.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

I have a suspicion that people who have paid for MQA media will no longer be able to play it at full resolution as DACs fail, just like happened to HDCD

Fortunately, the encoding details for HDCD found their way into the open and thus software decoding is now possible. Too soon to know if or when MQA will do the same, or if it is worth the bother. And people are still releasing HDCD players even though it is now out of copyright protection.

At present I'm not too fussed that MQA may be late filing. That's quite common for UK companies, despite being a legal requirement.

 

[sls4321]

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history

So this year their revenues were £376,950 and their costs over £5 million. Not looking great and not much of a plan for the future.

The one good thing is that they are no longer expecting to take over high definition audio so we all have to go get an MQA DAC. To the contrary, they note others are in the game but are not convinced many people are very interested in it.

Amazingly, they are about to get more money in November, so the saga continues.

 

[sq225917]

I suspect it became a tax write off once they realised it wasnt happening. They sure as shit haven't spent all that money unless someone is getting paid very well. Do they licence their ip from an offshoot company?

 

[Nero]

I have a suspicion that people who have paid for MQA media will no longer be able to play it at full resolution as DACs fail, just like happened to HDCD

dBPoweramp decodes HDCD quite nicely, giving you a notional 20 bit file in a 24bit wrapper

 

[davidsrsb]

I find it surprising that they have revenues at this point, I would have expected that manufactures signing up would get a free license for a couple of years to get market share.
Don't be amazed if some of the 5 million is actually paying someone to use MQA, a certain streaming company perhaps.

 

[Werner]

"The premature and misleading marketing around 5G has created a perception that improved data efficiency will not be required."

So, there it is: 5G (marketing) killed the MQA star.

 

[Fretbuzz]

Points for creative straw-grabbing at least.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Anyone who simply knows the way data rates and capacity displays their own 'Moore's Law' over time would have realised that the 'perception' was spot on, regardless of what form the next gen of networking might be. IIRC a few people here pointed this out when MQA first appeared.

Also it would be odd to not have noticed the rise in streaming video and what that implied.