MQA goes into reorganization.

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My dachshund came with an OBI attached. And then we took him to the vet.
You should've traded him in for an MQA decoder, SW!

R.15187d67f38271a55d459fd4260d77ba

HUH???????????
 
So I went back to Half Price Books and had a good day. The MQA disc landed in the clearance for $2.00 and I bought it. It is two David Chesky Piano Concertos. So I am now the proud owner of TWO MQA discs.

I also got a CD of a Vanguard classical recording (Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony). Also a Living Stereo CD of Tito Puentes Latin percussion..
Two European pressed Beatles CDs. And a three CD Telarc set of Monteverdi 1610 vestpers labeled " Surround Sound"(unspecified CD audio matrix). And a Mercury Living presence CD of Satie piano music. All for $27 tax included. A steal imho.

The Telarc Surround Sound disc set was processed through the "Apogee UV 1000" encoder and is stated to be "100% compatible with either two or four channel reproduction."
Fully compatible with QS and Dolby Surround.
 
PICKERING, ONTARIO, CANADA, SEPTEMBER 19, 2023 – Lenbrook Corp., a diversified, privately-owned Canadian enterprise with activities in brand development, technology, and distribution in both residential and commercial audio and the communication sectors, has acquired the assets of MQA, a UK-based industry leader in high-resolution audio encoding.

This acquisition enriches Lenbrook’s intellectual property portfolio with an assortment of significant patents and introduces two prominent audio codecs – MQA and SCL6. This merger further solidifies Lenbrook’s commitment to excellence and innovation in the evolving landscape of audio technology.

“Lenbrook’s vision is of a thriving hi-fi industry where technologies that promote both consumer choice and the pursuit of the highest sound quality are deserving of investment and nurture,” states Gordon Simmonds, Chief Executive Officer of Lenbrook. “We view this acquisition as an opportunity to ensure the technologies developed by the scientists and engineers at MQA continue to serve the industry’s interests rather than be confined to any single brand or company.”

George Massenberg, Grammy winning producer and recording engineer, reacts saying “I’m so relieved that MQA and SCL6 will continue under Lenbrook. MQA’s technology, with its faithful rendering of detail, complexity, and sound stage, gave us the reason to go back into the recording studio and reverse a 20-year decline in the quality of audio delivery methods.”

Founded from the insights and support of record industry executives, recording artists, and audio engineering experts, MQA sought to provide creators with the means to efficiently preserve the detail and nuance of their works in high resolution recorded formats, which at the time pushed directly against the trend toward heavily compressed music.

“I’m delighted that MQA will continue in good hands with Lenbrook,” adds Morten Lindberg, Grammy-nominated Master Engineer at 2L. “For 2L, using MQA has allowed us to enhance the experience of our recordings, beyond the raw capture, with increased access to sonic details, transparency and lower listening fatigue.”

“MQA is the only technology that considers the entire audio signal chain, from studio to listening room, to assure consistent quality of reproduction. The patents and research that underlie MQA represent significant contributions to digital audio quality due to their focus on time domain issues that have not been well understood until recently,” explains Greg Stidsen, Chief Technology Officer of Lenbrook. “We’re determined to continue to develop our marketplace and encourage the possibilities these technologies can achieve.”

Lenbrook has established a position as a stable and well capitalized organization that takes a long-term view of investments and market development. MQA had amassed over 120 licensees and several content partnerships, so Lenbrook’s primary objective in this acquisition was to provide certainty for business and technical developments that were underway prior to MQA’s administration. As a result, Lenbrook retained a core group of engineers and developers and sales and marketing personnel including Andy Dowell, previously the Head of Licensing for MQA, who will continue to lead business development activities.

“As one of MQA’s most significant licensees and also the owner of the award winning BluOS high-res content platform, Lenbrook is well positioned to build on what was started,” reflects Dowell. “Its BluOS platform work has proven that the Lenbrook team understands it takes a certain amount of neutrality to be a licensor, but it can also take a customer view when it comes to the wants and needs from a product development standpoint.”
 
“I’m delighted that MQA will continue in good hands with Lenbrook,” adds Morten Lindberg, Grammy-nominated Master Engineer at 2L. “For 2L, using MQA has allowed us to enhance the experience of our recordings, beyond the raw capture, with increased access to sonic details, transparency and lower listening fatigue.”

IMO, quite an endorsement!

Morten Lindberg, the 'guiding light' behind Nordic Label 2L produces some of the very best sounding classical releases on the planet.
 
I've not heard any of these discs, and I likely won't. Their existence, and other's excitement over owning and listening to them don't bother me in the slightest. I'm pleased that some members here find enjoyment with these. I mean, listening to music is a joy for all of us.

This format will continue as long as they are making money, and why not?
 
Will Lenbrook fight again to introduce SCL6 into the Bluetooth standard?

If MQA has market success will that push High Quality Atmos streaming with 'good' better compression? Or is Dolby Atmos AC-4 already the Dolby alternative?

Will MQA be used for multichannel? Dolby AC-4 is only for virtualized 2.0.

Will they be able to make money with this proprietary 'MP3' Next Generation?
 
What does SCL6 do and why would Bluetooth want it? Surely AAC gives you pretty much anything you want on Bluetooth apart from lossless, and there is AptX Lossless for that.

Is Dolby AC-4 really stereo only? It so that's very disappointing, I've seen it described as the future of audio on TV.

EDIT from Wikipedia: Dolby AC-4 can have up to 5.1 core audio channels which all Dolby AC-4 decoders are required to decode. Additional audio channels may be encoded as side signals which Dolby AC-4 decoders can optionally support which would allow for the delivery of 7.1.4 channel audio.
 
SCL6 is a MQA codec designed to work wireless and MQA intended to introduce it as part of the next versiĂłn of Bluetooth standard. This way MQA would be available for all headphones with bluetooth, at least Next versiĂłn. A Big market. But It looks Bluetooth SIG did not accept It.

I only knew Dolby Atmos AC-4 from some TIDAL tracks, that are virtualized binaural stereo. Those tracks are seen as 2.0 in MediaInfo, and I have No Player for them. If the compression is of better quality than E-AC3 (DD+), waiting to see if Dolby would make it another Atmos multichannel codec for streaming if it has lower file size for streaming than TrueHD.
 
If people like MQA I am the last person that would want them to not be able to enjoy it. I just hope that a new injection of millions of dollars of capital doesn't result in more attempts to shove it down our throats and extract tax streams from everyone.
I still have a problem with the continuation of the lie that the MQA juggernaut was built on.
The sooner that MQA distorted files stop being spread to audiophiles as "better sounding" than the original, the better.
They may sound different, but not better.
YMMV, JMHO
 
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