Is MQA Lossless?

FAQs

Q. Is MQA lossless?

A. It's better than lossless! 

MQA comes in a lossless file from the rights owner, most often the music label, so you get exactly what was intended.

But a lossless file is just a digital container, a box for data, and what really matters is the content!

Inside the file, MQA is very different: the audio is higher resolution; it's cleverly packed and designed to preserve and confirm that you get full Master Quality, wherever you listen.

MQA delivers clearer sound: our encoders remove the audible ‘digital blur’ that builds up in studio production. The decoder authenticates the file, to guarantee that nobody changed it, and it maintains that pristine clarity right through, so you can hear the original wherever you are.

MQA is more efficient: it puts the full sound into the container without wasting or losing data.

CD and so-called high-resolution PCM are 30-40 year-old technologies; they are better than AAC/MP3 that throws away audible content, but still a long way from what is heard when the recording is made.

MQA is revolutionary. MQA is the only significant leap forward in sound distribution for two decades – and it takes us way beyond the old-fashioned ideas of lossy and lossless.

Is it better than lossless? Yes, MQA goes beyond the file and considers the entire signal path to give you a clearer sound. That's the sort of progress you should expect from the world-class team who developed lossless compression in the first place (30 years ago). 

It's time to come into the modern era.

Dive deeper into the science of MQA on Bob Talks.