Audio Video News

High-resolution audio is getting a big industry push, but until now the category has labored without a definition. The Digital Entertainment Group, the Consumer Electronics Association, and The Recording Academy have teamed up to offer one. They define what they call Master Quality Recording in four ways: MQ-P audio comes from a PCM source with minimum 48/20 resolution, but “typically” is 96/24 or 192/24 in today’s download services. MQ-A is from an analog source, and high-quality analog can still be deemed high-res. MQ-C grandfathers in CD-quality 44.1/16 audio. And MQ-D refers to DSD sources. Taken together, these categories define high-res audio somewhat broadly. Even so, they may give the informed consumer a better idea of what he’s buying (for those of us who still buy music).