Audio Video News

Pioneer announced the industry’s first portable music player to support MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) technology at the recent IFA 2015 show in Berlin.

Designed by Meridian founder Bob Stuart, MQA uses efficient encoding to squeeze high-resolution audio performance into a standard-resolution file size.

The XDP-100R Digital Audio Player will be available in Europe in November but plans for release in the U.S. were not announced.

According to a report in Twice:

The Android Lollipop-based player features built-in Wi-Fi, enabling the device to download high-res music files direct from OnkyoMusic.com through a preloaded OnkyoMusic app. With direct downloading, consumers avoid the need to download files to a computer and then side-load them to the portable. OnkyoMusic.com will likely support MQA downloads because its runs on a platform built by 7digital, which plans to support MQA. The site is available in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.

Key features of the portable include ability to download apps from Google Play, video playback on the 4.7-inch 720p touchscreen, and support for such high-res formats as DSD 11.2MHz and 384kHz/24-bit FLAC and WAV files. It also comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA to stream files from network DLNA sources, Bluetooth with AptX, MicroUSB, 32GB embedded storage, and two SDXC memory card slots that expand storage to 288GB. It also comes with built-in speaker for casual rather than critical listening.

More information on MQA is available at musicischanging.com.