Note: This is a developing story. Updates will be posted as they unfold.
Lenbrook Corp, the privately owned Canadian enterprise whose holdings include NAD electronics, PSB speakers, and Bluesound (the maker of the BluOS music operating software system) has acquired the assets of MQA, Ltd, including MQA technology and the SCL6. The press release announcing the acquisition, which went public September 19 at 8am EDT, notes that the deal “further solidifies Lenbrook’s commitment to excellence and innovation in the evolving landscape of audio technology.”
The announcement ends months of speculation that began in April, when MQA entered receivership. An accompanying FAQ affirms that “As one of MQA’s most significant licensees and also the owner of the award winning BluOS high-res content platform . . . Lenbrook is in the business of providing high resolution audio experiences [to] informed customers who appreciate innovation and value having options . . . We believe MQA fits this mission as the research that makes up the foundations of the technology are based on neuroscience and cutting-edge digital sampling. Although MQA is a digital technology, it is an analog-to-analog conception and not simply a digital codec. Put simply, the MQA Encoder corrects for the A/D converter, ‘deblurs’ that signal and then uses a package that is much more efficient than regular PCM. Fans of MQA speak to its improved transparency, noise stability and temporal effects.”
MQA has attracted many critics since the technology’s release several years ago. Lenbrook’s FAQ addresses the controversy head-on. “We have always found it unfortunate that the core attributes of what we understand MQA to be seemed lost in a distorted narrative around some of the technical nuances in its implementation,” the FAQ states. “In this fray, the artist-first origins of MQA and the sheer technical elegance of its handling of the entire audio signal path got muddled. We are excited to have the opportunity to clarify the narrative and build on the technology in ways that can better demonstrate their true value, while also promoting innovation in a specialty and premium audio industry that thrives on healthy discussion, subjective views, and debate.
“Lenbrook’s position is that anyone doing work to advance audio processing and sound reproduction is positively contributing to the vibrancy of the industry. The vitriol directed towards innovations like MQA and what it means to those creating, delivering, and listening to better sounding music has always disappointed us when the technology and the patents that underpin it are so novel.
“We prefer instead to build off the fact that many influential content creators and reviewers absolutely understood that MQA was not really about 1s and 0s. We also believe that differing opinions is what makes this industry healthy—for example, we do not believe in one way to design a speaker and carefully approach product development in ways that offer differentiation and respect for individual listening preferences. A specialty hi-fi industry where there is no debate or new ideas would be commoditized far too quickly.”
Lenbrook affirms that MQA “was born of a vision that a group of like-minded musicians and audio engineers had to give musicians the tools they needed to capture their works in high resolution . . . We have listened extensively to MQA content and believe in the results of what we actually hear.”
The affirmation of MQA as a vital, high-resolution codec that honors the intent of artists and engineers was echoed by prominent Grammy winning producers and engineers. Reached in Norway, 2L’s Morten Lindberg stated via email, “I’ve had the great pleasure and privilege to work with Bob Stuart since the early days of his development of MQA. Thru hundreds of critical listening hours, I have really come to appreciate this tool brought to our sonic craft. I’m very optimistic to the future of MQA. And for the record: I have absolutely no business interests in any of the companies.”
In the press release, Lindberg stated, “For 2L, using MQA has allowed us to enhance the experience of our recordings, beyond the raw capture, with increased access to sonic details, transparency and lower listening fatigue.”
George Massenburg, Grammy and Academy of Country Music Award winning producer and recording engineer, also lent his endorsement. “I’m so relieved that MQA and SCL6 will continue under Lenbrook,” he stated for the press release. “MQA’s technology, with its faithful rendering of detail, complexity, and soundstage, gave us the reason to go back into the recording studio and reverse a 20-year decline in the quality of audio delivery methods.”
A “select group” of MQA’s UK-based employees are joining the Lenbrook team. These employees will remain in the UK. While Bob Stuart, MQA’s inventor/founder, will not join Lenbrook as an employee, he will serve in an advisory capacity focusing on MQA and SCL-6 product development. The licensing model for MQA and SCL6 will not change. The press release noted that record labels, artists, and producers continue to encode and upload new music in MQA to Tidal daily. “We also support consumer choice, and [Tidal’s] current ‘Max’ labelling does not allow consumers to search for content in their preferred format easily and that is where our reservations about it come in.” Recent changes to the Tidal app blurred this distinction, but Tidal appears to be stepping back this change.
Lenbrook describes SQL6, a more recently developed technology from the MQA team, as a “time-domain optimized scalable codec” with applications in wireless audio. “The technology is versatile and also suitable for applications in streaming and broadcast. SCL6 provides studio-quality sound even at low data rates and can be scaled rapidly and without audible interruptions. It is also worth noting that SCL6 is source agnostic, supporting PCM audio as well as MQA.”
In a May 2023 Industry Update that appeared in the print edition of Stereophile, Julie Mullins discussed SCL6, which at the time was being marketed as “MQair.” Billed as “an advanced codec created to offset wireless streaming’s bit-depth and sample-rate transmission limitations,” she described it as “the equivalent of a Bluetooth audio codec that utilized core MQA ideas.” SCL6 is said to be scalable from below 200kbps to20Mbps, covering Bluetooth, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), and WiFi connections. SCL6 supports MQA and PCM datastreams with a sample rate up to 384kHz.
Lenbrook brand PSB, which has long made Bluetooth-based noise-canceling headphones, has announced that it will release a headphone in the first quarter of 2024 that incorporates the SCL6 codec via Sonical’s CosmOS, an “ear-computing platform” incorporating a microchip designed for wireless headphones and earbuds. Sonical says that CosmOS uses UWB radio technology that provides a higher data rate and very low latency for more accurate sound and performance, offering potential advantages to headphone manufacturers and users worldwide.
Check back for updates.
Footnote: Stereophile‘s coverage of MQA can be found here.
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