Audio Video News

NAD Electronics has announced a firmware update that brings MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) support to a handful of its Masters Series components with more to follow in the future.

When owners of NAD's M12 digital preamp/DAC, M50 digital music player, M32 digital amplifier, and C 390DD DAC/amplifier upgrade to the new BluOS firmware, version 2.2.5, they will be able to decode and wirelessly stream high quality MQA music files.

MQA, short for Master Quality Authenticated, is an end-to-end technology that captures and delivers studio-master-quality audio in a file small enough to stream or download. As Bob Stuart, inventor of MQA technology explained in an interview with Sound & Vision, “We’ve examined the fundamentals based on the science of how we hear and we’ve managed to put the actual sound of the real event into a sensible size file.”

BluOS is a proprietary operating system shared by NAD and its sister brand Bluesound that allows for interoperability among BluOS players and connectivity of these players to streaming music in the cloud or from network sources. Both the players and the music sources are controlled by the BluOS app, which is available free for download for iOS and Android devices.

In the BluOS app, the MQA indicator glows green or blue to indicate that the player is decoding and playing an MQA stream or file, and denotes provenance to ensure that the sound is identical to that of the source material. It glows blue when playing an MQA Studio file, which has either been approved in the studio by the artist/producer or verified by the copyright owner.

For more information visit http://www.mqa.co.uk For more information, visit nadelectronics.com.

Related:

MQA Update Now Available for Bluesound systems

For more detail on MQA technology and the man behind it, see our interview with Bob Stuart, co-founder of England’s Meridian Group:
“Audio Statesman: Meridian Founder Bob Stuart.”

MQA Inks Global Deal with Warner Music Group

Meridian Announces MQA Firmware Update

MQA Update Now Available for Pioneer and Onkyo Portable Music Players

MQA Announces Partnerships at Munich Show