What is MQA in audio What is needed to play MQA music

MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) is a new audio standard that has appeared in the past few years and has attracted a lot of attention from audiophiles. More and more devices support the MQA standard; music streaming services have MQA such as TIDAL, Xiami Music. Many of you still do not understand MQA and how to play MQA standard music, so please read carefully.

1. What is MQA?

First and foremost, MQA is an audio codec just like WAV, FLAC, AAC, and MP3. That is a lossy codec similar to AAC and MP3. According to the recommendation, it omits some audio information at super-high frequencies far above the threshold of human hearing and does not affect sound quality.

The special feature of MQA is that although it is lossy, it can transmit music data equivalent to the original studio-quality recording up to 32bit/352kHz in a 16bit/44.1kHz file data packet. This process of compressing audio data is called Music Origami by the company.
And one thing that few people know about when talking about MQA is the use of a filter of its own for upsampling and correcting timing errors in the audio. Using a separate filter (Apodizing filter) makes it possible for MQA to make the sound output from the DAC similar to the analog audio recorded from the ADC.

2. What is needed to decode MQA?

To play MQA music, you need a decompression software called Core Decoder. When transmitting MQA, you receive a file with 16-bit/44.1kHz (or 48kHz) quality when software (Core Decoder) can decompress up to 24bit/96kHz and transmit to the DAC. The current Core Decoder software is Audirvana, Roon, TIDAL app (PC/Mobile), and Xiami Music.

The next step is hardware decoding (Renderer); you need a DAC capable of decoding MQA. After decompressing with software, the DAC (Streamer) capable of decoding MQA will continue to decompress by hardware thanks to a special upsampling filter of the company to turn the above 24bit/96kHz file to a higher quality equivalent to the original version.
Full Decoders are DACs/Streamers that include decoding with Core Decoder software in addition to Render hardware. So users only need to have the MQA file, then you can decode it completely without going through the software on the computer/phone.

Note:

– If there is decoding software, but the DAC does not support MQA, you only stop at 24bit/96kHz quality.
– If there is a DAC that decodes MQA without supporting software, it only stops at 16bit/44.1kHz quality
– Selection of DAC/Streamer should also be noted as Renderer or Full Decoder. For example, iFi’s DAC, Dragonfly is Renderer Only, and Lumin, Mytek are Full Decoder
– If the original recording has quality lower than 96kHz, even full decoding will be lower than 96kHz
It is a controversial issue that MQA is also a Hi-Res Audio because it can decode quality up to 352 kHz. Still, some people argue that it is not as good as Hi-Res Lossless because of the lossy codec. The MQA will also omit the super-high frequencies of the original recording and then compress it). Because of this, you can see audio engineers or manufacturers divided into many conflicting opinions about MQA.
In my opinion, the controversy of the audiophile is never-ending; whether MQA is better or not must be felt by each individual’s experience. In my opinion, MQA and Hi-Res Lossless, DSD is not as important as the quality of the original recording.

The advantage of MQA is that the transmission speed when using online music streaming services is much faster with the correct setup with the same quality as the original recording. You will see the difference if you try to play a Master quality song by TIDAL and a Hi-Res song on Qobuz simultaneously.

Cons: the biggest one is not in terms of working mechanism or sound quality in dispute, but MQA forces users to use licensed software and hardware and licensed by MQA to decode the MQA codecs. Whereas previous standards like DSD, FLAC, and many lossless codecs are completely open and free of charge, the question is, as speeds are getting better now, is MQA necessary.