 The HB-Project and the HB-Channel are supported by Hi-Fi Klubben. That sound kills good music. How can you integrate MQA into your existing stereo? What kind of box do you need to add and what current equipment becomes obsolete? Questions, questions, questions, but I do have answers. In earlier videos I have already explained why you should want the higher sampling rate that MQA can offer. How MQA achieves that and what else it offers. See the link in the top right corner or just play the MQA playlist. But to remember you now, MQA packs high-res audio in files the size of normal resolution, carries a fingerprint of the recording process and has a key that guards the integrity of the file. During playback the fingerprint of the recording process and the fingerprint of the replay equipment are fed to a computational device that compensates for artifacts that results from these fingerprints. So you don't only get more compact files, you know that all is done to get the best sound out of the recordings. MQA speaks of a transparent channel from studio to home. To get this high quality from the standard sized files you need to get yourself an MQA decoder, which sounds simple and in fact it is simple or as the recently passed away soccer player Jorgen Kreif would have said it's easy to understand when you comprehend. The elegance of the system is that when you don't have an MQA decoder you can still play the file at standard CD quality. Now what equipment do you need to decode? Well, it depends. I mentioned before that with MQA the fingerprints of both the recording process and the replay equipment are fed to a DSP that tries to eliminate the artifacts caused on both ends. The recording side is beyond our influence but the playback side isn't. In its simplest form the decoder only takes a DA conversion into account. That can be a separate DA converter but also a DA converter that is integrated in a player. For instance Bluesound have network players out that will have MQA integrated. On the other end of the spectrum the decoder might take into account the behavior of the entire playback set. In theory this could be any set but a well trained technician would be needed to analyze the behavior of the playback set and program that into the DSP. It might be clear that would be very expensive and it would be difficult to build a business case on. Only when active speakers are used that are driven digitally and have the volume control integrated with the impulse behavior of the DA conversion, the amplifiers and the speaker drivers and the cabinet can be taken into account if those speakers have the MQA technology integrated. This might currently only be the case for the active meridian speakers but any speaker using this topology could be equipped with MQA at this level. For most other sets the corrections the MQA system can apply will remain limited to the DA converter. That sounds a bit sad but especially the reconstruction filters in the A-converters are still a weak point in digital audio and compensating for these shortcomings might lead to very interesting products. I personally believe that now that we can keep jitter low the artifacts of the reconstruction filters form the main hurdle to be taken to achieve what Nyquist has described in his theorem in the thirties of the previous century but no one was able to build perfectly. So for most people replacing the DA converter for an MQA equipped DA converter will be the only way. But what if you own a streamer that has MQA built in or is awaiting a firmware update that contains MQA and you want to use it with an external DA converter? Well, since the MQA decoder can't tell what external DA converter is used and there is no way to feed this information, the behavior of the DA converter is not compensated for and there is another factor playing a role here. Depending on the design of the streamer, the different signals might appear at the digital output, if any signal at all. I am not at liberty to explain exactly what is happening there but the player might output the original 44.1 kHz 16 bit MQA file, a partly decoded signal at 88.2 or 96 kHz or just nothing at all. Given the technology that causes this and the potential confusion for the consumer, MQA might opt for muting the digital output for MQA encoded files. You will be surprised to hear that non MQA streamers can playback MQA files perfectly. Normally that will result in the playback on normal CD quality but if you connect an MQA DA converter to a digital output on that streamer it will decode the MQA signal to the sampling frequency it contains, for instance 192 kHz. How come? Well, the MQA file looks like a 24 bit 44.1 or 48 kHz file to all equipment but those containing an MQA decoder. And they will pass it on, as is, provided no processing finds place in the player like volume or tone control or sampling rate conversion. When the unaltered files arrive at the MQA DA converter it will recognize the MQA file, check the authenticity, decode it to its original sampling rate and apply the corrections for the recording process and the reconstruction filter. Mail1323 asked me the following question. I have an MQA DA converter and Explorer 2 but not on all albums it switches to 192 kHz. I have installed the firmware so it should work and it does work on some albums. Well, not all MQA tracks are 192 kHz. If the recording is made at 44.1 kHz there is no point of sampling it. Even then the MQA file can sound better than a CD version since the artifacts of the recording equipment sometimes even involving the analog tape recorder artifacts and the playback equipment are compensated for. People keep saying that MQA contains or is a kind of DRM, digital rights management since you need an MQA decoder to play back. This is incorrect in several ways. MQA is the equivalent of a music carrier like vinyl, CD, DSD and so on. If you don't have a record player you can't play a vinyl record but it doesn't make the vinyl record a system with DRM. Furthermore the MQA file can be played back on any device that also plays Redbook CD ribs in equal or better quality but limited to 44.1 or 48 kHz and 16 bit. Just like a Redbook file. You could even say it's a more flexible than a normal 24 bit 192 kHz audiophile since that only plays on equipment that supports 192 kHz as where the MQA file containing 192 kHz material will still play on a player that is limited to 48 kHz. It will then logically only play at 48 kHz max. I have been assured that for the consumer at home there never will be a copyright protection, DRM or whatever you like to call it. I even have this in writing from Bob Stewart personally. There will be a copyright protection for the professional world. One of the serious problems the record industry suffers from is premature ejaculation of new albums. Well, it's a man's world. This happens when the album is finished and copies have to be distributed to the people involved. The artist, the producer, A&R manager, the people at the pressing plant, people that take care of the download services and so on. If there's only one person with a memory stick that manages to copy the album the web will take care of rapid distribution. Therefore the studio or mastering engineer will have the option to switch on a copy protection. These files will, from that point on, only play back over a professional Meridian DA converter which will be rather expensive and have the looks of the 800 series equipment or on an Explorer II with special firmware loaded. The big converter will be in the studio. The special version of the Explorer II is what musicians, producers and so on will use. But, and this is very important, as soon as the album is released the normal way, meaning not as a copy of the stolen pre-release for internal use, it will never, read my lips, never have DRM according to Bob Stewart. Like sunflowers turn to the sun, the subjects of my video follow you, the viewer. This entire video is based on viewer questions, so keep the questions coming as long as they are not about personal buying advice. See my questions video, the link is in the top right corner. As long as you keep the questions coming, I will add videos. I will not always be able to answer personally, but you might see the answer in one of my videos. So, subscribe to this channel, follow me at Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. You can also post questions there, but again, view my questions video first. You will find all the information below this video on YouTube. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and tell your friends on the web about it. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. Whatever you do, enjoy the music.