MQA And Warner Music Catalogue - An Update

As announced in June this year MQA (Master Quality Authentication) contracted with Warner Music Group to transcode all their catalogue into MQA  files.With MQA they go all the way back to the original master recording and capture the missing timing detail.They then use advanced digital processing to deliver in a form that's small enough to download or stream.

Recently Bob Stuart,CEO of MQA was asked for an update on the progress of Warner transcoding their catalogue.He told Stereophile Magazine that they are not finished yet.So far they've only completed the part of their catalogue for which 24 Bit masters already exist and that's a lot of music.It includes all their digital transfers from analogue tape - think for example of all those 1950's and 1960's jazz titles - and most of their recent recordings.But it's not everything.In fact that part was relatively easy.

The early digital recordings - the ones made before the introduction of CD,and recordings made for CD,about 1987 - require more time and attention.They also haven't converted the analogue masters that weren't already digitized.Warner expect to have completed everything by Autumn next year.

And then there is the question of the other labels.There is currently no agreement with the other two majors,Universal and Sony.However,the aspiration of MQA is that the majority of their catalogue will be encode by next autumn.

MQA has a different take on high resolution audio.Instead of doing whatever it takes to get a 192 khz or 96 khz file,MQA  is about the integrity of a notion of authenticity.It's about achieving the definitive timing.An Unmanipulated file is the quest of MQA - the most natural version based on the best version of the master file.

It would seem that Tidal is on-board to supply MQA ,and Bluesound is a MQA  partner to decode MQA on a high resolution platform and therefore that means there is an opportunity to enjoy MQA via a high resolution streaming service.