iFi Upgrade to MQA
Did you ever see a movie called Tropic Thunder? As well as being truly hilarious and very cruel to Hollywood in general and Vietnam movies in particular, it gave us the awesome catchphrase of “Never go full retard…” it also gave us the gift of Tom Cruise in bald wig as Les Grossman, the most evil movie executive in the world. Who could scare terrorists by shouting unreal evil down the phone. He also liked to dance rude style to rap music.
He got this down SO well, that he was asked to reprise the role at the Music Of Black Origin MOBO awards, dancing with Jennifer Lopez to Ludacris that year. But in the movie you can see the speakers in his office, all the man really needs to be happy. This is so often Meridian speakers in Hollywood movies, from the brand that invented Lossless Packing because folks in Hollywood love the stuff. Meridian kit keeps on appearing in films as part of rich people’s homes.
I went to The Shard for the launch event of MQA, the new way to encode music to retain more timing accuracy and yet not make a high resolution file that is immense. It too is from the genius of Bob Stewart, the Golden Goose that is the Meridian source of audio cunning. You can learn about MQA here: http://www.mqa.co.uk/professional/the-tech
Having hardware that is ready to cope with decoding MQA is key to its success, obviously. And a company that you will only know about if you are a bit leading edge, called ifi, who in total contrast to OPPO, are in the ascendant, rather than entering senescence, are all over it. They are specialists in ordnance designed to enhance modern music delivery to your system, be it a hifi or four figures worth of headphones at your desk.
Here is their news:
iFi issues MQA firmware update
Free update adds support for MQA – the hi-res audio streaming codec – to a host of existing products from the company’s range
Easy to download and install via PC or Mac, iFi’s latest firmware update – v5.30 ‘Cookies & Cream’ – adds MQA playback to the following iFi devices:
CURRENT PRODUCTS
- stereo 50 music system (launched 2014)
- micro iDAC2 (launched 2015)
- micro iDSD Black Label (launched 2016)
- nano iDSD LE (launched 2016)
- nano iOne (launched 2017)
DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS
- nano iDSD (launched 2013)
- micro iDSD (launched 2014)
In addition, the new firmware update fully optimises MQA performance with the nano iDSD Black Label mobile DAC/headphone amp – the first iFi product to support MQA from launch (in Q4 2017).
The nano iDSD Black Label now comes with firmware v5.30 ‘Cookies & Cream’ pre-installed, as will forthcoming iFi devices such as the xDSD(launching this month).
For more information and links to download the new firmware via PC or Mac, ready to install on one of the above iFi devices, visit https://ifi-audio.com/audio_blog/mqa-firmware